Talk:Demographic history of Palestine (region)

message: So, I tried to put in info from the 1922 census of Palestine concerning migration from Transjordan and the Hejaz between 1914-1922]. I feel that this should be included, as it was mentioned in one of two official censuses done during the Mandate era, and really is no different from mentioning Bosniak migration in the 1870s or Egyptian migration in the first half of the 19th century. @Selfstudier, you reverted it because "Looks like cherrypicking, address issue in global terms". I'd like to have a discussion about this. What exactly are the problems with mentioning this? How is it in any way different from other mentions? Should we have rules over which cases of migration are mentioned here and which are not? As of now it seems like this was reverted for basically no real reason.--RM (Be my friend) 12:26, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Compromise? I don't think so, just more cherrypicking and I tagged it for that.Selfstudier (talk) 13:19, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I know it's been a while and I didn't really pay attention to this earlier (my fault) but can I get a second opinion if it's actually cherrypicking? I don't see a reason for that tag, this is simple census data pointing to an event that in my opinion deserves mention here. I don't think that tag being there is appropriate.--RM (Be my friend) 17:50, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "The Ottoman authorities in 1914 placed the tribal population of Beersheba at 55,000...." The section title is "British Mandate period, 1919–1948". Cherrypicking aside, it shouldn't be in there at all but I didn't want to get into an edit war after Shrike restored it.Selfstudier (talk) 18:29, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: If that's the main problem then it should be moved somewhere. I'll try and see if I can find a better place to put it. Note however that some estimates will naturally span over more than just the Mandate era, making iron distinctions difficult. Insisting that it's unbalanced/biased simply for being there is something I don't get. And why exactly shouldn't it be there at all? It's a potentially significant figure that deserves some mention. I'll review this and see if there's a better place to put it but I don't think the tag should be there at all.--RM (Be my friend) 18:36, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I don't know why so much interest in this particular datum, let's see what it looks like when you decided where to put it, presumably in the preceding section "Ottoman period, 1800–1918"? Selfstudier (talk) 18:41, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Hope this is better.--RM (Be my friend) 18:44, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks OK from my POV. Is there a figure for the increase?Selfstudier (talk) 18:49, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure, I'd have to go through the 1922 census to find this again and see, or maybe finding another source that gives figures for this period, but this was at least notable enough to warrant a mention in the census.--RM (Be my friend) 18:58, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "Changes in rural areas: The population of the predominantly Arab Beersheba district dropped between 1922 and 1939 from 71,000 to 49,000 (the rate of natural increase should have resulted in a rise to 89,000)." https://lessons.myjli.com/survival/index.php/2017/03/26/land-ownership-in-palestine-1880-1948/ Selfstudier (talk) 19:04, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: That deals with the population between 1922 and 1939, as opposed to the original which deals with the situation from 1914 to 1922. That author seems to be implying that Arabs from the Beersheba district largely migrated elsewhere in Palestine to predominantly Jewish-populatied areas. That's the main thrust of his argument, that economic development driven by Jews propelled Arab immigration and internal migration into areas heavily populated by Jews. BTW How reliable do you consider Moshe Aumann and that source in general? Some of the statistics he cites could potentially be used in this article.--RM (Be my friend) 19:12, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  If it is right then the 55000 of 1914 went up to 71000 in 1922, that's what I was looking at, to get a figure for the increase. That it went down again after is perhaps of interest, idk. I don't have any reason atm to doubt mjl, it's a biased source but doesn't mean the figures are wrong, maybe we could cross verify some of the data elsewhere and form a judgement like that.Selfstudier (talk) 19:31, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: "At the time of the 1922 census of Palestine, Beersheba had a population of 2,012 Muslims, 235 Christians, 98 Jews and 11 Druze (total 2,356)." according to  Beersheba which is a bit odd.Selfstudier (talk) 19:37, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Because said estimates refer to the Beersheba district, so the area around Beersheba as defined by the authorities, not just the town itself. The Bedouin didn't exactly have the habit of living in cities and towns after all.--RM (Be my friend) 19:40, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: What I meant is that both of the figures are supposedly sourced to SoP? Then there must be some explanation in that, no?Selfstudier (talk) 19:42, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: The estimate of 2,500 or so likely refers to the actual town by itself, the estimate of 71k is likely for the wider area around the town.--RM (Be my friend) 19:46, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it needs to be clarified because anyone reading the two articles would get confused in the absence of an explanation. I will dig out the SoP 1922 and see what it says.Selfstudier (talk) 19:48, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Table V of CoP 1922 gives Muslim pop of 74,910 for 1922 (subdisrict of Beersheba). The figures at Beersheba article exclude the tribal areas.Selfstudier (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Just what I thought. Did the British calculate the area of the subdistrict the same way as the Ottomans or were these different areas? I imagine they weren't too far apart. BTW regardless of this there is some interesting info in this article, it talks about estimates of immigration at between 60k and 100k and cites a UNRWA report from 1962 as claiming there was a significant influx of unrecorded Arab immigration during World War II. All of potential use in this article.--RM (Be my friend) 20:10, 20 November 2021 (UTC)

text: Care to explain why? Alaexis¿question? 06:21, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  A single paragraph claimed by Aumann to be in a rare document is repeatedly copied by others. Aumann doesn't say it is an official statement of UNRWA but only that it is in a work published by UNRWA. So we don't know who the author is. Moreover, given that it is unlikely that a single paragraph on immigration sits in the middle of an article on other things, we need to see what surrounds it in order to know if Aumann cherry-picked it (in conformity with the polemic nature of his article). It could be that if we can find "UNRWA Review, Information Paper No. 6" ourselves it may be useful, but until then we only have an indirect report in an unreliable source. Besides that, the section of this article on unrecorded immigration is already embarrassingly long and we should be looking at ways to cut it down rather that pushing extra stuff into it. Zerotalk 06:37, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, we obviously should check the citation for accuracy. I don't think that UNRWA reports are "[un]reliable for events before it was founded." It's not based on any Wikipedia policy.  Alaexis¿question? 07:21, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: As far as I can make out, there were 6 "information papers", the a) to f) in the Introduction section here and it's title here is given as "Problem of the rectification of the UNRWA ration rolls" (see also the refs in http://cidbimena.desastres.hn/pdf/eng/doc2483/doc2483-12b.pdf). So we can go from there to see what it is all about.Selfstudier (talk) 11:10, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  Good find. The 6 papers were also published together. Frustratingly, my library catalogue lists two copies that are both marked "missing". Zerotalk 11:50, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not readily obvious how the paper supports Aumann statement "During World War II, the Arab population influx mounted apace, as is attested by the UNRWA Review, Information Paper No. 6 (September 1962)". The paper instead seems to be about the financial problems caused by "extra" refugees getting onto UNRWA rolls and the need for repeated "rectifications" of the count from 49 through 62. Page 70 of this has info about this.Selfstudier (talk) 12:26, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: 1922 census mention

message: As tagged, it is longer than it deserves already. It is especially inappropriate to add more from Fred Gottheil, who is an economist who published in an online magazine. He already has two paragraphs, which is more than enough. As I showed above on this page, his work cannot be trusted. It happens that the three items here exist but none of them adds anything, just more of the same. And there is missing context. The quote from Jarvis was just a comment in a speech he made; how does that have weight? And we can learn a little about Jarvis from his next words: "He [the Arab] was glad that a stronger hand was being taken in Palestine. The Arab appreciated the strong hand and did not mind if it were a little ruthless." Should we quote that too? Zerotalk 03:46, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arab immigration section 

message: Just the fact that king Herod of Israel was an Idumean would show that there was not just Jews in the Palestinian region in the 1st century BC. Patrick.N.L (talk) 09:57, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. There is also the question of the meaning of the word Ioudaioi back then – are we giving a population for those whose religion was Judaism, or those who came from Judea? We need a good source to explain this. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:31, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

text: I may be missing something but where exactly is it written that only Jews lived "in the Palestinian region in the 1st century BC"? In other words, what exactly do you propose to add or change? Alaexis¿question? 17:58, 6 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about Pagans : Romans, Idumeans, Ammonites 

message: , thanks for expanding the article. Could it be that a "not" is missing somewhere in the following statement? I'm not sure I understand it now:  Alaexis¿question? 20:50, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Converts 

message: The table showing census data from the 1931 census swaps the number of Christians (91,398) with those of Jews (174,610); someone should correct it. cf   — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:14:8063:5C60:F9C4:9C9A:FDF:D476 (talk) 12:38, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed, thanks. Zerotalk 13:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 1931 census data error

message: Somewhere in the article, 'Eastern' is written as "Eastrn". I'm unable to edit the page though, as I don't possess the 'extended confirmed user access level'. Schutsheer des Vaderlands (talk) 20:51, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed, thanks. Zerotalk 00:58, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misspelling 

message: I agree that infographic is not appropriate and I don't even know what that really would look like on Wikipedia. All I am trying to achieve is a table with numbers and next to it a summary of the major demographic drivers, always being a summary of information provided in full elsewhere in the article or on other Wiki articles. I have continued to work on my previous table, adding such drivers, at the link I provided above.
Leaving that aside for a moment, I have found some factual errors in the table that is currently on the article (the original table). It seems that DePergola published his table in 2001, but then there was an update in 2003, which I found in JSTOR and I was able to access via the Wikipedia library. I have a full copy saved on my personal Google drive here and the table is publicly accessible here. In the 2001 version, which is cited as the source, the total population of Palestine in the 1st c. was stated as 2.5 million. The 1.25 million currently in the table, does not correspond to any figure in the source article. So at a minimum, that figure should be updated to the correct one. However in 2003, DellaPergola changed the figure to "1,000–2,500", i.e. between 1 million and 2.5 million people total in Palestine at that time. I hesitate to go in and make that edit now, since we are having discussions about the other table.
Let me just re-emphasize that I have no intention of doing "original research" but rather, reviewing and summarizing current Wikipedia content and the respective sources, and in this case, I did happen do come across an updated version of the source material. Anything that does fall into original research, such as calculating percentages, I am grateful to be made aware of.
I also thought about your mentioning my inclusion of the bullet point about possible genocide, and I did realize that it should not be included. That word does not tell you anything specific about the driving factor of how a population group's numbers were reduced - whereas if that happened through battle, or slaughter of civilians, etc. then the change in the numbers is linked to a specific event which can help explain the changes. So I will remove that word which is of course also emotionally loaded. Keizers (talk) 15:32, 17 December 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: 1.25 million figure does not match source

message: @Yezhi283825, thanks for adding valuable information to the article. I've noticed that you removed some information that was supported by sources without explaining it in edit summaries (here, the paragraph starting from "The country underwent great prosperity" and here the paragraph starting from "While many Jews departed to thriving centers"). Was there a good reason for removing it? If not, please restore it. Alaexis¿question? 21:33, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: @Alaexis: Going to be adding further information regarding the Persian, Byzantine and Islamic periods, will make sure to re-add these. Yezhi283825 (talk) 10:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! Alaexis¿question? 12:17, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent changes 

message: Regarding this edit, I apologise for saying the information was removed without explanation - there were so many edits lately that I missed the right one.
Al-Marashi's article is still available  but I don't think it's a good source as it only mentions the Bosniak migration in passing. However Grossman also deals with the Bosniaks, so I'd propose something along these lines
Palestine experienced a few waves of immigration of Muslims from the lands lost by the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century. Algerians, Circassians and Bosnians were mostly settled on vacant land and unlike the Egyptians they did not alter the geography of settlement significantly. (Grossman, p. 73). Alaexis¿question? 08:00, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fine, feel free. Zerotalk 08:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late Ottoman period 

message: Why are we saying Islamization for adoption of Islam but not Canaanization, paganization, Judization or Christianization? Makeandtoss (talk) 09:59, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: It does have the Crusades and reversal of Islam under the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods section  Wafflefrites (talk) 15:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Islamization 

message: Alexander Schölch, not Scholch 2A02:8109:B6A2:5500:0:0:0:588F (talk) 16:54, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  wrong name