Talk:Quneitra

message: IGuy Montag please stop this revisionism.  According to the Six Day war article on Wikipedia, Israel is the one that launched a pre-emptive strike.  This stub of an article is not going to discuss if Israel was justified or not in its strike/invasion, but the fact is that ISRAEL INVADED SYRIA.  I'm sure that in your mind the invasion was totally justified and saved alot of innocent lives, but the fact remains that it was an invasion.  Why are you trying to rewrite history and claim that Syria invaded Israel?Yuber(talk) 23:57, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Montag

message: The witness said that he and many other inhabitants tried to return to their homes, but were prevented from doing so by Israeli troops. Israeli authorities stole many archaeological remains and stones. They destroyed the trees, the vineyards. They burned all the crops which had already been harvested.	 
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-	The Israeli troops entered also the village of Mesehara where the witness had taken refuge. They used loudspeakers to urge the inhabitants to leave immediately if they did not want to be killed. The villagers were then gathered and expelled, with tanks following them. Some old people, however, remained behind. They have never been heard of since then.	 
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-	After a few days of occupation, most of the inhabitants were gathered in a small part of the city. The Israelis prevented the inhabitants from going back to their homes on the pretext of security reasons and they started looting. Then the inhabitants were called to sign personal statements that they would leave Quneitra of their own free will. Finally, the Israelis took the inhabitants in trucks and dropped them outside the city boundaries. Police were warned not to return under threat of being shot.	 
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-	The witness said that in 1967 he was living with his father, mother and children in the city of Quneitra. When Israel declared its war on the Arabs on 5 June 1967 1967, it wanted only to fulfil its dreams of swallowing up Arab territories without their inhabitants. The Israeli troops struck at the city of Quneitra on the first day of the war. They shot at trade shops and houses with people living in them. In the few following days after Israeli troops entered the city of Quneitra, most of the inhabitants were still living in it, but pressure mounted to compel inhabitants to leave. For instance, Israeli authorities used to gather the youth in one place and would accuse them of being in the military service; they also gathered the inhabitants in one spot and compelled them to kneel on the ground with their hands above their heads, with no consideration whatever for old people, women or small children. They also took away the wives, whose reputation is of great importance in Arab families.
Here are the quotes.  Propose a version in talk and we will work on it to reach consensus. 
Guy Montag 03:20, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Filling an article with long quotes from a one-sided description of a war is decidedly un-encyclopedic.  Brief quotes and summaries are always better, as is a balance of sources. Jayjg (talk) 15:33, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Long quotes workshop

message: Previous version of the article simply stated that witness testified about  Israel's alleged destruction of the city before withdrawal. I added information that the witness was called in by Mr. Najib Al Ahmad, Special Representative of Palestine Liberation Organization. Information added comes from the source provided.
What bothers me is that the person who contributed this witness account, probably red the entire UN report, and then deliberatly made it sound like it was the official position of the UN. Judge for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Quneitra&diff=30115040&oldid=29466055 --Heptor 4 December 2005 (UTC)
: How to find this info: follow the link to http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/ded9d4b9fbef11c1802564360057f1f2?OpenDocument. Scroll down to Annex two. Find II.	Damascus, Syria - 26-29 May 1979. There you will see Statement by Mr. Najib Al Ahmad, Special Representative, Political Department, Palestine Liberation Organization. Witness 24 is Mr. Yassin Rikab. The included passage comes from point 132. --Heptor 22:02, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quote by a witness about alleged Israeli destruction 

message: I have just reviewed the article and found it very well written and believe it passes all 6 of the criteria. One minor point is that reference 19 doesn't have a source so if this could be added it would be even better! Good Luck if this goes to FAC! - Suicidalhamster 16:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Passed GA

message: I tinkered with some punctuation and wording. The way the lead read before was a bit clunky; to start a sentence "Founded in the Ottoman era..." (which the reader takes as an intro to a history), and then jump to 1967 seemed jarring.
If I may comment, I'm in awe of the NPOV here. It would be hard to imagine a more explosive kind of topic, but it's been handled masterfully. --Milkbreath 02:49, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copyedit 

message: This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, Epbr123 15:06, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Pass

message: Some WP:MOS cleanup is needed prior to maindate; I left sample edits.  There is inconsistent date linking throughout (see WP:MOSDATE)  Full dates (month day, year) and month-day combos (month day) should either be consistently linked everywhere (including citations) or consistently formatted in raw form.  There are missing WP:NBSPs or s.  And there are problems with logical punctuation on quotes. Also missing retrieval dates on websources.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup prior to maindate

message: Why is it appropriate to say that "The government of Syria has been criticized for not rebuilding Quneitra" in the lede, but not "The government of Israel has been criticized for destroying Quneitra?" I mean, the criticism of the Syrian government comes from Israeli sources, while the criticism of Israel comes from the United Nations General Assembly in a 93-8 vote - the 8 were Israel, the USA, Australia, Canada, and 4 US protectorates in the Pacific. If anything, NPOV would suggest that we note the condemnation of Israel in the lede and not note the condemnation of Syria. <eleland/talkedits> 17:14, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have to second this - it was the first thing that struck me about this article.  Aside from a reference to a book about the Yom Kippur War there's no real discussion of what "criticism" has been made - and since the Israelis made it clear they can flatten the city whenever they want and have effectively blocked off half the supporting territory around it, the Syrians would have been pretty stupid to waste the resources rebuilding a city from scratch there. Wnt (talk) 00:56, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I changed the line in question - in the interests of balance, we should certainly mention that both Israel and Syria have been criticised for their respective roles. Incidentally, it's worth noting that (as mentioned in the last section of Quneitra#1967–74) the Syrians did actually commit, in the withdrawal agreement with Israel, to repopulating the city despite it being in the UNDOF disengagement zone - the late President Assad repeated the commitment on several occasions after the city's return to Syrian control. The Israeli objection is at least partially based on the Syrians not following through with this commitment. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:07, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Rebuilding the city was a condition of the peace treaty that Syria signed. Therefore Syria is currently in violation of the treaty. Both should be mentioned, but criticism of Syria is the only ongoing event. --Lemmey (talk) 22:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: If Israel did not want a permanent monument to their barbarity and war crimes, maybe they shouldn't have destroyed the city in the first place. Maybe they should have let the residents stay rather than cleansing them in preparation for Israeli settlement. Which is something that basically never happens after a truly defensive war. This is sort of like if Germany got pissy about Poland not demolishing Auschwitz. 2601:140:8980:106F:CC5C:5DCF:997E:6F2B (talk) 02:37, 6 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV lede 

message: Reference number 2's link ("Report of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories", UNGA Resolution 3240, 29 November 1974) seems to be dead. --138.232.251.210 (talk) 09:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it is fixed now.  Jon513 (talk) 10:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dead Weblink 

message: 'The city was almost completely destroyed before the Israeli withdrawal in June 1974'
I think it show bias to try and weasel around a fact, that Israel destroyed Quneitra, as explained further down in the article, but making it sound ambigous as to who destroyed it, and then going on to say that Syria has been criticised by Israel for not rebuilding the city, but not making it clear that it was the Israelis who destroyed the city.86.150.145.177 (talk) 10:39, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, but although the evidence strongly suggests it, Israel asserts it was destroyed during the course of war, so we can't present it as an unequivocal fact. Brutannica (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Something not quite right

message: The article says 1010 meters elevation, and later it says 942 meters. Which is right? Art LaPella (talk) 17:34, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: 1010 or 942?

message: The name of the city is derived from the Arabic word qantara, meaning bridge. It would be nice to add this information to the article given how unusual the name sounds to most people. I wasn't able to find a reference for citation though.-- Ευπάτωρ Talk!! 17:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Etymology

message: Let's see: "User:Compwhizii" is "not too good at writing things", so he just hits the revert button. Raul654 reverts back to his version, without further comment. Then everyone else just gives up. Smells like WP:OWN to me.--Veritysense (talk) 20:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I put back in one of the changes I made. If someone has a problem with it let us talk about it. (Halgin (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Final form 

message: Folks, please remember to discuss controversial issues at talk, and include reliable sources for any text that is challenged.  Thanks, Elonka 01:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Reminder

message: The article says:  "The agreement provided that the city was to be repopulated to serve as evidence of peaceful Syrian intentions, by creating a hostage to Syrian good behaviour which would encourage the Israelis to pull back further.[27] "  However, the closest the agreement gets to anything like this is "All territory east of Line A will be under Syrian administration, and Syrian civilians will return to this territory."  So the claim cited to [27] is at most an opinion of the source and should not be presented as a fact.  I suggest the article instead quote the actual text. McKay (talk) 13:43, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disangagement agreement 

message: According to The Middle East and North Africa 2004, Quneitra's population before it was captured by Israel was 27,378 people. Lonely Planet's Syria & Lebanon guide cites 37,000 people, but I can't find this attested elsewhere. Does anyone know what the current population is? I vaguely recall reading newspaper articles which suggested that a handful of people still live there. -- ChrisO (talk) 23:49, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think we will have to use both. The Syrian Central Bureau of Statistics webpage is inaccessible for the moment (has been for months). Therefore, we have to rely on the above-mentioned figures. When we were editing Hims (in Syria), we found all the old populations of the city, but all the recent ones (which were also from the two books mentioned above although the ME and NA was published in 2007) seemed to contradict each other, so I suggest we use both figures in this case until we could find a Syrian government source. --Al Ameer son (talk) 01:22, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Hmm. I recall trying to access that webpage ages ago - not very satisfactory that it's still down! I'll do some further trawling to see what I can find. Do you have any figures for the current population? -- ChrisO (talk) 07:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm afraid not. I'll look into it though, but I thought it was abandoned. --Al Ameer son (talk) 16:52, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population figures 

message: Can somebody explain why the map of the Golan is being removed. First it was removed as being in an inappropriate section. Fine, the map did not belong in the early history section of the article. But now it is being removed from where it is relevant. Why? And further, why is edit-warring to remove a clearly relevant map acceptable? nableezy - 20:24, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I see the person who removed the map initially claimed that it's a map made by a topic-banned user, which introduces a POV into the original CIA map. If you want to use the original CIA map as is, fine. Yes, I want to use the original CIA map, which is the map you removed. nableezy - 20:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: and restored, before you wrote this. All Rows4 (talk) 20:50, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Not exactly, but thank you for correcting your error. nableezy - 20:52, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

text: No, exactly, but you are welcome. All Rows4 (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  removal of map 

message: I'm really inclined to remove (or relocate) most, if not all, of the info about the clashes in the Quneitra governorate between various rebel groupings and the army, and the "Iranian" and "Israeli interests" sections as well. The section on the clashes and the "Rebel groups operating in Quneitra" should be removed because they don't involve the city of Quneitra itself, but rather the villages of its governorate. No need to flood this article with all of those details. As for the Iranian and Israeli interests, again, it does not directly involve the city itself, but the broader strategic significance of control or influence in the Golan Heights. I don't want to comment further about all of these large detailed sections. The info looks to be pretty educational about events relating to the Golan Heights in the civil war and its place in the larger regional conflict, but this is an article (a Featured article) on the city of Quneitra. Any thoughts on relocating this info to Quneitra Governorate clashes and/or elsewhere? If not, I will likely make the move later this week. --Al Ameer (talk) 02:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Syrian Civil War info 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20081221221152/http://www.syriagate.com/Syria/about/cities/Quneitra/ to http://www.syriagate.com/Syria/about/cities/Quneitra/
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I would like to add an Arabic IPA pronunciation guide. Shahanshah26 (talk) 15:07, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 8 November 2017 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: TYPO
Remove repeated 〈the〉 at end of first paragraph
"...the city is inside the UN-patrolled THE buffer zone." Jdheywood (talk) 12:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: . –Ammarpad (talk) 13:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 13 December 2018 

message: This article has extremely dated content and sourcing and does not appear to have been maintained since its promotion eons ago.  A glaring example is the 2004 census data in the lead, with more of the same in the body.  There are also short stubby sections.  I am listing this at WP:FARGIVEN. SandyGeorgia (Talk)  04:47, 25 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Featured article review needed