Talk:Israel/Archive 21

message: I was trying to direct someone else to a series of maps depicting Israel's changing borders -- either claimed or actually enforced -- and found nothing here, really, except by wading through the WikiAtlas collection. I'm taking about 1948 vs. 1967 vs. 1995, etc. I don't know whether it should be part of the main Israel article or a separate article linked to this one, but I'm willing to bet someone has the necessary information or visuals at their fingertips. (Hint, hint, . . .) --Michael K. Smith 16:15, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: almost all "borders" are realy cease-fire lines, and I do not think they have any legal bearings. according to international law (this is what I heard, and it makes sense), if a state (Egypt & Jordan here) illegally takes hold of land (Judea, Samaria & Gaza) and then loses that land to another state (Israel) in a war of aggression (Egypt & Jordan attacked Israel) the the defending state (Israel) is now the legal holder of that land (Judea, Samaria & Gaza). according to Jewish law all of the land of Israel belongs to the children of Israel. Any part of it, including what we hold, is ours legally. however, other nations may come to hold parts of our land illegally, in which case we are allowed to refrain from taking it back. How is this relevant to maps? simple: the maps must depict the cease-fir lines, and mutual non-aggression (peace) lines, but the internal division of areas held by the state of Israel (Arab autonomy, Jordanian law, date of acquisition, etc)is irrelevant and should not be depicted, unless the map is supposed to be about the internal structure. -Shyisc 17:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: History of Israel's Borders

message: I do not have a huge amount of Knowledge of Jewish religious history, or motives for Zionism and general return to Israel, but I think it would be good if this article explained in greater detail religious motives (if there are any) for return to Israel. Disagree with me if you feel this is sufficiently explained. I however think this should be put in a NPOV way which in my opinion considerable amounts of the article are not placed in. This would be either by showing both points of view for and against technical religious reasons for Israel. E.g. one point of view maybe that the Jewish people were displaced centuaries ago by the babalonians and that they have rights to the country, and the other point of view would be along the lines of that in Jewish texts the babalonian invasion was a punishment by G-d for disobeying Israel, and that the return to Israel would happen only with the coming of the messiah. Or possibly a secular or atheist point of view which states that Zionism is out of place in todays society. Or simply just by giving a general overview with neither point of view, which explains basic refrences to Israel in  Hebrew scripts. If you feel the article explaisn this enough then disagree with me, or that the Jewish migration to Israel was non-religious and simply to avoid persecution, however since many politicians in Israel follow a religious line (for publicity reasons or otherwise) I personally belive the religious reasons shoudl be explained.-S.M
:I think that what you are looking for is in the articles on Zionism and Religious Zionism.  As the first of these articles makes clear, there are both religious and non-relgious foundations for Zionism.  6SJ7 17:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: all forms of Zionism are derived from the Jewish law to live in, Develop & have sovereignty over the land of Israel. for example: secular Zionism follows this directive because Jews are a nationality and Israel our homeland, and this is what nations do with their homeland. the religious Zionism that believes in waiting for messiah probably developed that belief out of despair from all the failed attempts to fully obey that law and developed their ideology as an excuse to avoid making further attempts. -Shyisc 18:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Religious Basis For Israel 

message: Border, from the Oxford American Dictionary: "verb [ trans. ] form an edge along or beside (something) : a pool bordered by palm trees. • (of a country or area) be adjacent to (another country or area) : regions bordering Azerbaijan | [ intrans. ] the mountains bordering on Afghanistan."
In other words, border as a verb makes no statement about legal status of an international border. However any border disputes are resolved, Israel always has and always (to whatever extent we can predict the future) border the Mediterranean to its west, Lebanon to its north, Syria to its northeast, Jordan to its east, and Egypt to its southwest. Israel also borders the West Bank to its east, as well, whether or not it's a sovereign territory; there is a recognized boundary, though not a border, demarcating the West Bank. Which also means that it borders Gaza to the southwest. I just don't understand how any of this can be controversial. It's worth mentioning somewhere else that the borders are disputed or not official or whatever, but the fact of where Israel is is not disputed, right? GUSwim 03:10, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Definition of border

message: * The article as is, is not factually accurate and verifiable. 
The Culture of Israel section is very much lacking in sources, even in the main articles it links to, with the exception of the Education sub-section. The Zionism and Immigration, Economy, Judiciary, and Military sections also lack sources, as do the section 1950s and 1960s and 1970s. 
* The article is not neutral and fails to represent viewpoints fairly and without bias. 
There are a lack of sources for controversial claims: 
"In a massacre in 1929, 133 Jews, including 67 in Hebron were killed and 116 Arabs were killed in the riots."
** This is wikilinked to 1929 Palestine riots and its 1929 Safed massacre and 1929 Hebron massacre subarticles, which have multiple sources confirming that the massacre happened, as well as the casualties. I'll try to clarify per the subs. TewfikTalk 20:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are more than welcome to your opinion. However, please read WP:GA as to how good articles work. Thank you. -- Avi 02:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Nomination Premature

message: I have passed this article as GA. It is a very well written article and conforms to all guidelines at WP:GA. I might suggest cleaning up the external links (WP:EL), otherwise, this page has been listed as a Good Article!--TREYWiki 00:56, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA Pass

message: Responding to the comment below I put some irrelvant quite opinionated stuff in where im writing now, which I removed as it was written more in emotion and was not very helpful to the article.
This was placed in the "mislabeled" section above. GracenotesT § 17:20, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Comment by 172.143.30.24

message: As per the GA listing comment - the suggestion was to tidy up the list of external links as I did. -- Flymeoutofhere 19:41, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But now at least they're categorized - you made them into just one big list. If you want to re-categorize them - I won't interfere. okedem 20:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reformat External Links 

message: wikipedia's Hezbullah article states that Hezbullah and Israel had both been accused of War crimes by amnesty international cited with http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde020252006. However the word war crimes isn't even mentioned in the article. Kadhumia flo 20:51, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What do you mean?  It's mentioned six times on that page... --hello,gadren 23:49, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  War crimes 

message: An alternative to military service in Israel is national service in approved non-profit organizations.  National service earns you the same benefits as military service, and recently a mostly arab and haredi youth targeting organization was approved, which is expected to improve arab volunteer participation. This would lessen the perceived inequality in benefits for arab and jewish sectors because the other is more probable to have gone through military service. Because of this I think national service should be mentioned in the article.  See  http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/865822.html
Hyvatti 06:02, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, esp. as it's becoming more popular an option for Israelis regardless of ethnic background. GUSwim 03:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  National Service 

message: I removed two Hebrew sources that do not refer to what they are supposed to refer to:
*The first is for the sentence that claims that Israel provided gas masks for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. The Hebrew source only states that the the High Court of Justice overruled the decision to provide gas masks to Jewish residents of these territories and not to Arab residents, it doesn't say that gas masks were provided.
*The second is for the sentence that claims that the Palestinians used the gas masks against Israeli use of tear gas (in 1991). The Hebrew source only states that gas masks can be used against Israeli use of tear gas (in 2002).--Doron 20:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed sources 

message: "...and being the only country in the world to currently apply an appartheid system."
Really? Appartheid is a very loaded word(and almost always refers to South African appartheid). Could someone present an argument for this?
:That little fragment was snuck in today, and has been deleted. okedem 20:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  appartheid 

message: Israel does not have a "coat of arms" - it has an "emblem." The infobox needs correcting (and don't anyone tell me that this is Wiki style. It is not appropriate here).--Gilabrand 10:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coat of Arms 

message: Shimon Peres, please update the info
:The former president (Katsav) hasn't left office yet, and Peres has not entered office officially. Sometime in July (17?) he would be come the proper new president. Etams 10:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  israel has new president 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionist_Regime
Redirects to this page of Israel, while "Zionist Regime" has a totally different meaning than "Israel". Next to that, no info can be found om this page about the subject "Zionist Regime" (like Iran adresses colonial politics only of both Israel, USA and allies). As far as I can see at this point, that term is used primeraly for colonial politics in the Middle East where "Zionists" are involved. Some Zionists aren't jews, some Zionists aren't Israeli and many jews and jewish Israeli's don't support Zionism either, so what does that redirection here??! Can someone restore that error + provide the proper page-info for "Zionist Regime"? -Many thanks. 201.192.17.90 06:14, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: "Zionist regime" is mostly some kind of way of saying Israel without saying it like "Zionist entity". It is a term used only by rabid anti-Zionists. If someone wants to build a page about the use of this word, no problem. Benjil 08:06, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Thanks for the good find. I'm sure someone will be able to make a page about the term, which is fairly notable by itself. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's already a page Zionist entity, such as it is, maybe a redirect should go there, and the terms should be discussed there?John Z 19:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have changed it. Zionist Regime now redirects to zionist entity  WacoJacko 03:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zionist Regime 

message: Hey there.  I recently re-added the Palestinian conflict to the introduction (after it was deleted) and felt the need to state why.  First of all, it is (arguably) the most important part of Israeli politics at the moment, and certainly the one that garners the most world attention.  That also has been the case for some years now, and it's absence was glaring. My goal on Wikipedia has always been to eliminate bias, and I was careful to write in a way that was neutral and did not place the blame.  It links to the pages for Israel's conflict with Palestine and also Israel's conflict with its Arab neighbors generally, without going into any detail or placing any blame.  Furthermore, while stating that Israel has received criticism for this (as cited) I also noted that it has received support (again, as cited).  Changes were recently made to the foreign policy section of the U.S. article that similarly reflect conflicting views of U.S. foreign policy.  I did not make those edits, but awhile back I made similar changes to the actual United States Foreign Policy page.
I hope this describes my edit well, and helps you to understand why I made the entry.  I sincerely hope it is not deleted in the future.  My own opinion on the conflict is mixed, and admitedly I'm not as well-learned in the subject as I'd like.  But I certainly think it is noteworthy and important enough that it should be in the introduction.SpiderMMB 03:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry Spider, but while it is a good attempt that tries hard to be neutral, and while there may ultimately be a new synthesis included (although I oppose one), putting this section in the lead lends undue weight to recent events, something which WP:Lead makes clear shouldn't happen. At best, perhaps a very general mention of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a whole is in order, though I'm afraid that that too would be inappropriate. Again I apologise, but just don't think that this belongs. TewfikTalk 06:55, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

text: The issue isn't how you're writing, as you are clearly trying to be neutral. Rather, as important as the Arab-Israeli conflict is, it is entirely reasonable to expect readers to continue past the TOC to the rest of the entry and its numerous mentions. Again, this is not an issue of "pro-Israel" or "anti-Israel". TewfikTalk 07:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I will take another look at this. Cheers, TewfikTalk 08:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have to say that I agree with Tewfik</font>Talk it doesn't belong in the introduction, per what he said.WacoJacko 03:23, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Palestenian Conflict in Introduction

message: "Having a broad array of civil liberties present" is not English. Sorry. Same goes for the rest of the section, which is badly written, hence my edits. The trouble is, you've been looking at this wording for too long and think there can't be any other way to write it. I am looking at it with fresh eyes, and I'm telling you - it is bad.--Gilabrand 06:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I tried fixing the grammar - does it work? My problem with your phrasing was I felt that it took a less objective tone, almost making the value judgements instead of letting Freedom House speak. But I could be entirely wrong. Cheers, TewfikTalk 08:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  the lead section 

message: Given that the majority of the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as the legitimate capital of Israel, it is wrong to state in the article that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. It is better to state that it is claimed to be the capital of Israel by the government of Israel, which must respect international law that denies it the right to place its capital in Jerusalem. Robert 12:33, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This has already been discussed in several archives including here.--nids(♂) 12:43, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True the international community doesn't recognise it, but only one country matters for where the capital is. Israel. If the United States decided that its capital would be St Louis, and the international community decided not to recognise it, does it matter? Ben W Bell talk 12:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Exactly Ben W Bell talk, a sovereign nation decides where it's capitol is. Israel has decided it's capitol is Jerusalem.WacoJacko 03:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capital in Jerusalem 

message: I have been working on shortening the lengthy History section in this article for the past month (I know... that took way too long; I've been thoroughly distracted). The results of this endeavor is located at User:Tariqabjotu/Israel history. Essentially, the history section in a country's article is supposed to be a summary, especially since we have a History of the State of Israel article, which itself needs some help. Note, as an example, the United States article. The editors there have done a terrific job of summarizing the extensive American history, which itself has a main article, History of the United States, and several sub-articles, including one dedicated to just nine years of history. What are your reactions to my rewrite (ignore the fact that there a few sources; that can be hashed out later)? -- tariqabjotu 19:57, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Could you point to what sections are significantly altered? TewfikTalk 19:36, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The original section is here. Essentially, the farther along you go in that original, the more stuff you'll find that was removed (because more recent events tended to be covered with excessive detail). This is the diff, although it's a bit misleading. -- tariqabjotu 19:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  History section 

message: Hi I noted that the references were not showing correctly on this page, so I corrected some of the basic reference syntax. If I did something wrong please acknowledge and advise..! Contact me on my talk page if I made some errors or caused a problem! Reuv 21:05, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: SeiteNichtGefunden has been kind enough to gift us with the horribly misleading and incorrect statement:
"Groups such as Amnesty International[13] and Human Rights Watch[14] have been critical of Israeli policies with the United States government being the only major ally of Israel."
I would simply revert it, but I am not sure how to best word it. There are plenty of organizations worldwide which are supportive of Israel, and a number of governments which are Israel's allies. If someone more knowledgeable as to precisely which organizations and countries they can cite would do so, I would appreciate it, and the project would certainly benefit. LordAmeth 22:49, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misinformation 

message: I had a look at this, as its clearly misinformation. The whole section seems to be taken from an newspaper article/blog, and is wholly inaccurate. If you take a look at the Science Citation Index, it is clear that the US is first in this, with 35%, followed by  the United Kingdom, 8 percent; Japan, 7.3 percent; Germany, 7 percent; France, 5.2 percent; Canada, 4.5 percent; Italy, 2.7 percent.  This needs to be re-written to reflect the facts.  With the figures normalised to 10k per, Finland and Switzerland are higher. I think the blog is specific to one year. scope_creep 21:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't understand -- the figures you give are absolute, while the article claims something about per capita figures. Are these figures available on the web?--Doron 05:33, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Science and technology 

message: After reviewing several featured articles on countries, including Bangladesh, Belgium, Pakistan, Japan, South Africa, India, Indonesia, and Australia, I did not find in any of them a separate section devoted to human rights. All featured articles on countries have more or less the same structure to which this one must stick as well. Beit Or 19:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, there are numerous frivolous sections in this article, although I do believe human rights should be mentioned somewhere to a much lesser degree. -- tariqabjotu 02:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human rights section 

message: A separate section on Israel and nuclear weapons is too much for this article. What we need is one or two sentences, saying that officially Israel follows the policy of deliberate ambiguity, while such and such authoritative military experts believe Israel to possess so many nuclear warheads. The experts, however, must be authoritative and the sources reliable. Beit Or 20:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section on nuclear capability 

message: I have tried to get this point across before, to no avail. The lead is being fought over endlessly because it is arrogant and in-your-face. I offered a revision a while back that was promptly reverted by one editor, and was thereupon lost in the heaps of revision attempts since then. It is not the introduction that I would choose to write myself, if I were creating it from scratch, but based on the material that is already there, here is my suggestion: 
The State of Israel was created in 1948. Today it has a population of over seven million people, with a large Jewish majority. While Israel is home to both Jews and Arabs, it is the world's only Jewish state. Jerusalem is Israel's capital city and seat of government. The official residence of the President of Israel, the Knesset and the Supreme Court are located in Jerusalem. The Basic Law: Jerusalem  states that "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel". However, the Palestinian Authority regards East Jerusalem as the future capital of Palestine. The United Nations and many countries do not accept the Basic Law, arguing that Jerusalem's final status will be determined in negotiations with the Palestinians. Most of the countries that maintain diplomatic ties with Israel have thus relocated their embassies to Tel Aviv.  Israel is the only country in the Middle East today that qualifies as a liberal democracy. Citizens of the State of Israel enjoy political rights and civil liberties that are not granted in the countries around it. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are also strictly upheld. Israel has a free market economy, encourages competition and investment, and attributes great importance to human resource development.--Gilabrand 11:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead you have proposed is practically all about Jerusalem; there's a lot more to Israel than Jerusalem. Jayjg (talk) 16:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you read the lead as it is today? This is precisely the same thing, just worded differently. If you have more to add, please go ahead. This is just a suggestion to get away from the infuriating tone of what is there at the moment (i.e., intentionally dry and factual sounding). Certainly there is a lot more to Israel. Absolutely.--Gilabrand 17:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like you want to bring material from the footnote directly into the lead. If you don't intend that, then you should change your version. Jayjg (talk) 17:14, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I have to echo the sentiment that the lead you proposed has too much information on Jerusalem. On a related note, I would like to note the lead guidelines at WP:LEAD. The article is over 40,000 characters at the moment and, although that size will surely decrease once the Military and Human Rights sections are rightfully purged, WP:LEAD suggests a lead length of three to four paragraphs. Creating a lead that long ought to be no problem. -- tariqabjotu 18:09, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting the lead  

message: I don't think that "foreign relations & military" should be merged - even if this is true for other countries. Both are complicated subjects in Israel's case, and there is really no connection between them (unless military confrontations with the Arabs are considered a form of foreign relations).--Gilabrand 20:00, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm a bit indifferent on this, but I'm not fond of extremely short sub-sections (such as the ones that exist under "Culture"). -- tariqabjotu 16:57, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  merging sections 

message: Can we just get rid of this –
The Israeli Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty seeks to defend human rights and liberties. Reporters Without Borders reported Israel 50th out of 168 countries in terms of freedom of the press, highest among Middle Eastern countries and just ahead of the Japan. In addition, Israel is also the only country in the region to have its press ranked "Free" by Freedom House.
– paragraph? It is so out of place and completely irrelevant to the other content being discussed in the government section unless we provide some sort of context (such as the fact that Israel has gotten quite a bit of criticism over human rights). Additionally, Israel's status as the Middle East's most free country is already addressed in the the introduction. -- tariqabjotu 17:02, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it seems slightly out of place, but it is quite short (shorter than the nuclear :-]), and shouldn't the lead be summarising something in the body? TewfikTalk 17:33, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human rights mini-paragraph 

message: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Economy/gdppercap.html states a 2004 gdp per capita at approx 17,000
CIA fact book puts population at 6.4 million https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/is.html
:Your information is outdated.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The CIA fact book is full of mistakes and concerning the population of Israel the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics is the best source. The GDP per capita in the article is at purchase power parity (ppp), that is used usually for international comparisons and not nominal. The nominal GDP per capita in 2006 vas by the way close to $21,000. Benjil 06:19, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The figures are correct and up to date. The source for the GDP ppp are the IMF and the World Bank (who gives even $30,000 for Israel in 2006), the source for the population is the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. And yes the CIA factbook is full of mistakes and outdated data. Benjil 16:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Israels GPD per capita is closer to 17,000 not 26,000 , its population is close to 6 million not 7 million 

message: Some of the reference links are not scholarly links. Please investigate further.  Shadibeidas 14:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You will have to explain a little more. If you have examples of non-neutral references, please give them. Benjil 14:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  References not neutral 

message: Is the RFC issue now resolved? Can the RFC be closed? Eiler7 20:25, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  RFC 

message: It's a nice idea to introduce "religious diversity" into the religious section, but devoting at least a quarter of the article to a few people who belong to esoteric religious sects is unacceptable, bordering on the ridiculous. Every time I try to add pertinent information to this article, most of it is promptly removed in the interests of "keeping things short and tidy." Religion in Israel is a very important topic. There is no listing of the zillions of Christian sects, no discussion of very significant differences between trends in Judaism, and no mention of Islam, when Islamic beliefs are central to terrorism in Israel today. So fine, keep the Bahai photo (nice pictures are definitely lacking here), but either add more info on other religions, or remove the overly detailed discussion of a handful of marginal religious groupings somewhere in Israel (or not even living in Israel, with just a temple here)--Gilabrand 07:11, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: For one thing, I don't believe this is the appropriate location to talk about Islamic beliefs being central to terrorism in Israel today. As for esoteric religious sects... I'm unsure who you could be talking about. Buddhism and Hinduism are by no measure esoteric sects. The Bahá'í Faith is significant due to its headquarters being in Israel, allowing me to ignore addressing whether that's an esoteric sect. Honestly, religious tolerance is a two-way street; it wasn't too long ago when people would have (rather wrongly) called Judaism an esoteric sect (or something of similar demeaning stature). Anyway, you may note that the religion section as it stands now does not actually discuss any of the religions, but simply explains their relative presence in numbers. Perhaps the cultural aspect of religion (presumably Judaism) could be discussed in the Culture section (that's how the Saudi Arabia article does it, although that is by no means the gold standard). -- tariqabjotu 07:59, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  lopsided religious section 

message: I hoped to come to the talk page to pre-empt the kind of comment Gilabrand made above, but unfortunately he beat me to the punch. I'm not here to monopolize the article, but when serious quality errors, such as ones caused by this edit, these edits, and these edits (in reference to the line breaks), are introduced, one should not be surprised if someone comes along to fix them – even if in a drastic manner. In reference to the line breaks, the line breaks were not merely put between paragraphs that had already existed. Piecing together the coherent paragraphs that originally existed would have been more difficult, in my opinion, because making all the section edits at once might have hit edit conflicts and other issues along the way (if you have not noticed, that is basically how I choose to re-write other, shorter, sections; this edit, for instance, took several hours). You appear to disagree. Fine. And maybe you're right. But the effect of either method would have still been the same. I didn't say I was going to "reintroduce certain bits later"; please don't put something in quotes unless you're copying something verbatim. I instead said that I "will attempt to merge content changes momentarily", which, unlike your misquote, (a) does not suggest I'm only going to put a few things back in and (b) shows an intention to more immediately fix the issue. Unfortunately, you hardly gave me an opportunity to fix the issue. You probably did not know, but when I was submitting the reverting edit, I repeatedly got a Wikimedia Error page. It wasn't until about fifteen minutes that I decided to just go back to the Israel article only to discover that my edit had actually went through the first time. I then proceeded to begin to merge the content changes back into the article, as I said I would, beginning with one of your edits. 
So, I didn't use your exact wording regarding the Rabin assassination. So what? I have as much right as you to add information to the article. You split off the sentence regarding Rabin's assassination. Terrific; I don't care. I simply added the name of the killer as well as the part about Oslo Accords support rebounding (which you appeared to remove from the original version because it didn't fit in with splitting off the sentence). Saying the assassination "shook the country to the core" is media sensationalism; there's no need to be so dramatic. I was momentarily side-tracked by the fact that you had changed the sentence in the following section despite the fact that we both tentatively agreed on one phrasing, but you hardly gave me a chance to proceed to complete the rest of the merges as you reverted my revert (along with my content change) before the end of the hour.
You complain about my "blanket reversion of [your] edits" when no such thing took place. The only thing I reverted was the section entitled "The first fifty years, 1950s-1990s". You worked on the Culture section and the Education section and the Religion section, which I left alone, but the changes to the prescribed section from the history were hardly your doing, but almost entirely the work of  (and, as I said, I was going to merge the content changes back in anyway). I don't know what you're trying to say out of this. That I'm making too many changes to the article? That I'm being pedantic about the quality of even specific sentences? Well, I'm sorry to inform you that is the way I will continue to work on this article (and any article I devote this much time to). I will look at all the edits since my last visit to this page and make changes to the work of others if I see stylistic issues or if something was inadvertently removed in the midst of another change. This is less an indictment of your (and others') ability to write, and more a tendency of some to edit more quickly, thereby sometimes introducing unwanted stylistic errors (like the ones noted in the first paragraph of this comment). So, in the same vein, I'm unsure where you got the impression that I'm ""rewriting"" (again with the misquote) "the information in substandard English". I tend to proofread my edits quite well and although I still do sometimes make mistakes, there appears to be nothing grammatically incorrect about this phrasing (which, as I said earlier, is a reflection of your wording with the introduction of two pieces of information).
There is no "system" of "reverting everything and writing that [I] will "reintroduce certain bits later"". Let's not exaggerate; I made one single edit. This article was in desperate need of help (particularly in the style department rather than the content department) and I have, as I'm sure others have, been doing their best to improve this article. Suggesting that my way of editing (whatever that way of editing may be) is unacceptable is, well, unacceptable. I'm not asking for a gold medal here, but my edits on the whole have contributed positively to the article. I'm more than willing to discuss pieces when others make serious objections to my edits or reverts (a lá WP:1RR), but asking for permission on the talk page for every edit (or even most edits) I make is unnecessary and counter-productive to improving this article in a timely fashion. -- tariqabjotu 19:43, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Monopolizing the article

message: why there is no information about Gini coefficient for israel? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.81.22.136 (talk • contribs) 
:As far as I can tell, the gini coefficient is not usually covered in country articles (I imagine in part because most are not familiar with the concept). Is there a reason you believe the coefficient is especially important here? -- tariqabjotu 16:17, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gini coefficient