Talk:Israel/Archive 30

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Footnote

The fact that the United Nations and most countries in the world do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital should be stated within the article itself, and not in a footnote. This fact is obviously important on many levels, given the regional importance of Jerusalem and what it means to the current conflict. By not laying the dispute over Jerusalem and the international view of Jerusalem clearly on the table, things become unclear and ambiguous. Furthermore, the article becomes weakened and less of a reliable source for visitors of the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.91.128.51 (talk) 15:37, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Recognition is irrelevant the the city's role as capital. International recognition is not, and never was, a prerequisite for a capital city's status, and so is of little importance in this regard. okedem (talk) 18:30, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

If America labeled Ottawa, Canada as its capital, it would be relevant, as everyone recognizes Ottawa as OUTSIDE of America. Unfortunately for Israel, Jerusalem is not part of their recognized borders (the pre-1967 ones). Tel Aviv is where everything is and is at the least a de facto capital worthy of listing next to Jerusalem, which should say "(disputed)" after that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.95.234.234 (talk) 18:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

West-Jerusalem is part of pre-1967 Israel borders. Benjil (talk) 20:11, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Capital is defined (open a dictionary) as a country's seat of government. Israel's parliament, government offices, PM office, president's quarters, supreme court, etc. are all located in Jerusalem, and Israel has designated it as the capital - thus, it is the capital. Recognition or international borders are beside the point. If the US had control of Ottawa, and placed its entire government there, then it would be its capital, even if Canada and every other country in the world protested it. okedem (talk) 20:47, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is the 'conflict' not resolved?

The article states: "efforts to resolve conflict with the Palestinians have so far only met with limited success, due in part to vigorous opposition on both sides." This sounds like the 'vigorous opposition' is equel on both sides, and i wonder which observational tool was used to determine this, Israel has tried again and again to resolve the conflict only to see that there efforts are only aiding the expansion of terror (Qassam rockets being fired almost daily on Sderot are made with Israeli fertilizer given as aid to the palestinians, opening road-blocks has allowed terrorists to murder civilians)

As palestinian children and adults are exposed on a daily basis to messages of hate (in schools,mosques and the media) it is no wonder that the 'cycle of violence' continues- and really there is no cycle, rather Israel has the right to defend itself, this one sided attack was obvious during the recent cease fire (israel cease chamas fire). Dov345 (talk) 23:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

er..no, that's wrong. If you broaden your reading material about the political positions of both sides, how and why agreements have failed, what each side is demanding, have a look at sources (like B'Tselem) that provide details of the attacks carried out by both sides against each other since say 2001 and the associated casualty figures, read the various reports by international bodies about contentious issues like the barrier, settlements, occupation status etc etc you'll soon see that "vigorous opposition on both sides" is okay. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:12, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

The "vigorous opposition" refers to the elements in each society actually opposed to the two-state solution, the only viable way to solve this conflict. While the Israeli government has taken some positive steps (and I think its military actions are wholly justified), the settlers and their supporters oppose the entire idea of land-for-peace. While it is obvious that settlements would need to be evacuated for any solution, Israel's government has continued to build them, or to allow settlers to build illegally, due to the political pressure of the people opposed to withdrawals and a Palestinian State.

I don't think the phrase implies equal opposition (and I don't think it is equal). okedem (talk) 05:25, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

What this shows is that the word "vigorous" is clearly POV, and should be removed. "Opposition" is sufficient.--Gilabrand (talk) 05:51, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Both sides deliberately carry out actions that result in the death and injury of their opponents. Vigorous seems quite appropriate if somewhat ironic. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Even Liberman (belonges to the extreme Israeli Right) supports a 2- state sollution, this is while Chamas does not accept Israels right to exist,

the peace procceses and the dissengagment have proved- that Israel would be wise to wait for chamas/PLO to take some sort of concrete action towards eliminating terror, before giving up any land that will weaken its military position87.70.137.209 (talk) 10:27, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually even Hamas' leader in Syria has made statement accepting a 2 state solution so go figure. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:37, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually - not really. He said they might support two states, but still demand the right of return. Given the number of Palestinian refugees, this just means two Palestinian states. okedem (talk) 16:20, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Outdent. I don’t really want to get into this one now, but it was my edit that added ‘vigorous’, and I believe it remains the operative, neutral and correct word to characterize 'opposition'. Generally, I added the word because, peace, or even reproachmont(sp? Fr.), has not been achieved. I, like many, look upon peace as normal and commonsensical, and after 60 years, it still doesn’t exist. Therefore, something more than just ‘opposition’ must be involved. No specifics are involved with backing-up either side of that statement. That is beyond the scope of the intro paragraphs and not really necessary; the article content, below, should establish the specifics to justify that word-choice. If justification does not exist, then something is truly wrong with Wiki-framing. Should someone feel that insufficient prose is included for justification on the P-side now, then add more. If someone should find equally insufficient justification for the word on the I-side, then please look at the last lede paragraph here, and the middle paragraph here. These should provide sufficient NPOV background to justify the use of ‘vigorous’ for at least one side of the prose to describe 'opposition'. I shall leave my comment there, for now. Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 13:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I agree that "vigorous" is a POV word even though it is applioed to both sides.

Telaviv1 (talk) 09:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

The changes

1. There is no such nation as "Palestinians" - they are Arabs. If to regard people who lives in historical Palestine - then Jews sghould also be included. Trying to call Arabs "Palestinians" is simply an attempt in politically-motivated speach to present Arabs as the true natives of the land.

2. Even if the President is not important, he nevertheless is the head of state. That Israel is a parliamentary republic (and hence the President is not so powerful as in presidential republic such as USA) already stated in the article.

3. Other things is simple neutralization.

--MathFacts (talk) 10:41, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

1. That group of people is referred to as "Palestinians", in media in English and Hebrew, by politicians of various view, etc. Although before 1948 "Palestinians" was a general name for the inhabitants, now it is only a name for the Arabs there. And please assume good faith when discussing these things.
2. Yea, he's the head of state. But he has little importance, and basically has no real power. No point in wasting space in the lead about him. That info belongs under "Government and politics".
3. Saying what US-based human rights orgs say is not "neutralization", it's simply un-needed and peculiar. okedem (talk) 13:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

It is difficult to identify palestinian arabs or to simply call them arabs. Those living in Gaza could technically be considered Egyptian Arab refugees and in the West Bank you could identify them as Jordanian Arab refugees. Since they choose not to identify themselves this way one cannot simply call them Arabs. Since palestinians did not exist as a title until 1967, it makes the entire topic too difficult to comprehend. Avinyc (talk) 16:27, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

For interest, Britannica, the source cited in Palestinian people (when it's not being removed by ninja edits) says "The Arabs of Palestine began widely using the term Palestinian starting in the pre-World War I period to indicate the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people". Sean.hoyland - talk 15:56, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Etymology of Is ra el

According to Josef Yahuda the name Israel is derived from 3 seperate ancient Greek words: ies (Is) power, ra - king and el from Ilios (Helios). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.131.12.66 (talk) 12:35, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

who is josef yahuda? and can you provide a source for that?

Telaviv1 (talk) 09:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

At first I thought that Josef Yahuda was probably an imaginary coworker of Avi ben Googlevich but no, he's a real person or at least Joseph Yahuda is. He apparently published a book in 1982 called "Hebrew is Greek" that purports to show that Hebrew is..um..Greek or rather is derived from Greek using comparative linguistics and possibly some handwaving (I wouldn't know the difference). I think that is what is being referred to by 115.131.12.66. Puzzlingly I don't own that book so that's as far as I can go. Sean.hoyland - talk 11:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is biased against Israel": Israeli internet researcher

Discussion closed per WP:TALK and WP:NOT#CHAT. Rami R 14:05, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Via the Media Backspin blog, an "internet researcher" (a what?) told a Wikimedia gathering in Tel Aviv that Wikipedia is biased against Israel. I posted a reply in the blog. Go at it. Emmanuelm (talk) 12:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC) I reverted the deletion of this comment, because it is a violation of policy, generally, to do so. I did, however, delete personal info; no need for that here too. Do I feel that this discussion goes on this page? No, I do not; it is much more relevant at Zionism, Anti-Zionism, hasbara, Honest Reporting, or better yet, at Israel Identity Crisis[1]. Despite that, deletion of the talk-post is unacceptable, seemingly censoring. Please discuss this and determine consensually where, or if, it should be included. I'll work on that myself, too. Regards, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 04:51, 5 May 2009 (UTC) What is your purpose again? I don't see how this contributes anythig to the article, and that is what talk pages are for right? So what if an "internet researcher" thinks wikipedia is biased against Israel? Does this have any notablility? The person was right to delete this entry as it served no purpose. Ltwin (talk) 05:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC) (@CasualObserver'48) The rules are pretty clear on this. From Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines: "The purpose of a Wikipedia talk page is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or project page. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views." (bold in original) From Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a publisher of original thought: "4. Discussion forums. Please try to stay on the task of creating an encyclopedia. You can chat with folks about Wikipedia-related topics on their user talk pages, and should resolve problems with articles on the relevant talk pages, but please do not take discussion into articles. In addition, bear in mind that talk pages exist for the purpose of discussing how to improve articles; they are not mere general discussion pages about the subject of the article, nor are they a helpdesk for obtaining instructions or technical assistance. Unless it is shown that the rules aren't as clear as I believe they are, I will remove this section again. Rami R 09:50, 5 May 2009 (UTC) I agree that we shouldn't dedicate article talk page pace to the usual nonsense from Eli Hacohen and Dishonest Reporting. It also is not good to have article talk space dedicated to pointless incitations to go and bombard another website. However, instead of removing this thread, you could archive it which acknowledges it more than having the only record being in the edit log. There is also the question of whether someone doing "internet research" about Wikipedia can edit in good faith as aprt of the research and whetehr this should be raised on an admin board.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:02, 5 May 2009 (UTC) Now that this has been discussed, I repeat it doesn't belong here, and repeat my purpose as enforcement of policy. Further, I agree that archiving and reporting are both appropriate. Peter, please report it appropriately, I seem to only mis-post them, Thanks, CasualObserver'48 (talk) 04:30, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

A Nation State

The fact that Israel defines itself as the nation state of the Jewish people is missing from the article. Since the nation-religion duality of the Jewish people proves to be somewhat baffling for non-Jews, this comment is necessary to the understanding of the nature of the state of Israel. One might confuse it with a Theocracy such as Iran, for example (that is, a state where religious law is the base for the state's justice system). Although religion certainly affects Israeli law - especially family law - it is not the base for the Israeli Justice system, which is civil by nature. I seem to have went a little OT. Just mention the fact that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people, will you? ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.108.157.159 (talk) 17:58, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

You can write it yourself, this is wikipedia - anybody can write something. Furthermore, I agree with you, this is one of the things many people, even in Israel, do not always understand.Benjil (talk) 05:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you're off topic at all - I will try to insert into the article the fact that 80% of the real estate in Palestine is reserved (racism redacted )for the American and European jewish conquerors (this is of course the land "redeemed" from the native Palestinians without compensation). But don't hold your breath waiting for the truth to appear, the Isreali ministry of Information has its paid minions "correcting" the article 24/7. Fourtildas (talk) 05:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

You can write whatever you want, if it's sourced and neutral. And apparently, this is not what you are planning to do.Benjil (talk) 05:58, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm very interested in what the "Basic Law" says about the "Peoples Land", but the "Chosen People" make sure these topics don't get discussed in Wikipedia. (racism redacted)Fourtildas (talk) 06:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming what I was saying.Benjil (talk) 09:15, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

For the record, I disagree with redacting Fourtildas' racist idiocy. Exposing such people is more powerful than censoring them. Schrodingers Mongoose (talk) 00:06, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The nation-religious duality of Judaism is quite confusing for Jewish people too, especially as different political groups nurture this confusion for all kind of political interests. Technically, Israeli is defined as a Jewish and democratic state (מדינה יהודית ודמוקרטית) without any formal interpretation as to whether "Jewish" means "of the Jewish nation" or "of the Jewish religion". In practice, Israel code of law and system of government is almost entirely secular. As for the land ownership - most of Israel's lands are owned by the state or by state affiliated institutes. Currently, there is a basic law which forbids the state to sell its lands (there are discussions about changing this law). Therefore, the state leases its lands to citizens for periods of 50 years. A citizen who has such a leasing contract with the government, usually treats the land as if it were his own. There are a lot of complaints about discrimination in this leasing system. Most complaints come from Arab citizens, but a significant amount of complaints come from Mizrahi Jews' organizations and other interest groups. DrorK (talk) 00:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify - the problems occur in two areas - first, some of the land (about 12-13%) is owned by the Jewish National Fund. That land was purchased using donations from world Jewry, for the use of the Jewish people, and so the JNF charter forbids sale/lease of these lands to non-Jews. Most of those lands are in national parks and other uninhabited areas, but not all. This creates problems when non-Jews want to buy a house or a plot of land. This is solved nowadays by transferring the land in question to the Israel Land Administration, making it public land, and then leasing it to the non-Jew. The JNF then gets an equal sized plot of land in an uninhabited region, where these problems don't occur (the JNF is involved in major forestation efforts, which is why Israel is one of the only places to end the 20th century with more forests than it had in the beginning of that century).

The other issue is community villages - sometimes the ILA leases land to create a new community, and the founding members create a committee to screen new members. Those committees sometimes discriminate against people who aren't like the founders - often against Arabs. One can appeal to the ILA against such discrimination, but it's hard to prove. okedem (talk) 12:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Most of the lands owned by the JNF (Keren Kayemet) today are lands confiscated from displaced Arabs and given the the JNF as a kind of political-juridic arrangement shortly after the Israeli War of Independence (War of 1948). Some of these lands were handed back to the State's Land Administration, but actually after the State was established, the JNF was incorporated into the State's administrative system, so it doesn't matter much. Of course, the JNF still holds some lands bought with Jew's donations, but this is a relatively small part of its assets, and one could argue that since the establishment of the State, the JNF should honor the anti-discrimination laws, just like any other Israeli organization, public or private. As for the community villages, the Supreme Court ruled that preventing Arabs from leasing lands and building homes in such communities is illegal. Actually these communities also try to prevent single mothers, gay couples, senior citizens and other members of minority groups to join them. I know of one appeal submitted to the Supreme Court by an Arab family, I don't know if other people submitted similar appeals, but the legality of this system is very much in doubt. Having said all that, the land administration policy with all its problems, cannot be the single criterion for judging whether Israel discriminate Arabs. Israeli Arabs enjoy most civil rights despite the problems mentioned above, the Arabic language is used officially and extensively, there is an Arab educational system supported by the State, Arabs enjoy freedom of assembly and freedom of speech, so the problem of discrimination is less harsh than often perceived. DrorK (talk) 18:10, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Those lands were confiscated by the state, and then sold to the JNF for a hefty sum, on par with other land purchases of the time. So all the land was purchased with Jewish donations, even if the seller's right to sell is in question. I think the currently used solution (land swaps) is a good way to do this, and I hope this will become a non-issue. Even today I read in the paper about a large land swap being planned, due to the new reform of the ILA - they want to give people full ownership of the land their houses sit on, instead of leasing, but this can't legally be done with JNF lands (for Jews or Arabs alike), so they'll just give the JNF alternate lands in uninhabited areas. okedem (talk) 18:35, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

The name Israel is from Pre-Old Persian *ausra dēla [ausra dǣla] 'the son of the dawn', cf. Old Persian uṣra, Latvian austra, ausma 'dawn, sunrise', aust 'to dawn', Austriņš 'Morning star', and dēls [dǣls] 'son' (Latin fīlius < *dhēl-). Roberts7 12:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

No it has nothing to do with old persian.Benjil (talk) 13:01, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually the source of this name is unknown, but it is highly unlikely that it comes from old Persian. DrorK (talk) 17:52, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

It is almost certainly of Semitic origin, with the 'el component being the West Semitic god El. The debate among real researchers is what the "Isra" or ysr component means. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 20:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Open University

The article makes a claim that Open University of Israel is in the world's TOP500 schools and links to the ARWU rankings, which, however, do not contain Open University of Israel. Please fix or clarify. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.132.81.231 (talk) 04:47, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you've misread that sentence - "Israel's seven research universities (excluding the Open University) have been ranked in the top 500 in the world." (my bold). okedem (talk) 15:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Capital of Israel

Could there be a footnote to the status of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. Israel seems to be the only nation that regards it as such. No nation has an embassy in jerusalem, but tel aviv, which is regarded by all other countries to be the capital.

I dont want to be accused of being anti-semitic or anything, Im just finding that the whole of wikipedia where it concerns israel or even jews or judaism is plagued by opinionation and things regarded as completely false by the vast majority of the world. Many of these articles are protected in a status of extreme bias that seems to serve the purpose of anti-semitic people more than the general openess of discussion that seems applicable to almost all of the rest of wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.41.222.207 (talk) 04:50, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean ? There is a footnote. Besides, most countries officially consider that Israel has no capital city. To the best of my knowledge (but do correct me with sourced information if I'm wrong), only Switzerland officially regards Tel Aviv as the capital city of Israel. Oyp (talk) 06:03, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll repeat what I've said on multiple occasions. Foreign nations do not determine a country's capital, and their recognition or lack-thereof has no bearing on the issue. A capital is the city serving as the country's "seat of government". Factually, that is 100% correct in the case of Israel and Jerusalem, as Jerusalem is home to Israel Parliament, government offices, PM's office, Supreme Court, President's quarters, etc. Even if Israel control of Jerusalem is wrong, or illegal, or whatever, that does not change the facts. okedem (talk) 07:51, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

"History" - "Traditional view"

We only give the "Traditional view" of history. Don't our Policies require that we give the predominant view, which would be what academic historians say? Also the "Land of Israel" is referred to twice, once as a religious myth and once as an actual place. This is not "clear writing" and is an example of "cultural bias" since a non-Judaeo-Christian will be totally confused by this. Fourtildas (talk) 03:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The Land of Israel serves among Jews and Hebrew speakers as a name for the geographical region known in English as Palestine. Also, the official Hebrew name of the pre-1948 British Mandate was "Palestina-Ay", Ay being an acronym of "Land of Israel" in Hebrew. In contemporary Israeli legal terminology, whenever referring to the territory of the former British Mandate, the term "Land of Israel" is used. So, the term "Land of Israel" does indeed have several interpretations: mythical, religious, geographical etc. As for the traditional vs. academic versions of history - there is a fierce debate among archaeologists and historians about the time before the 7th century BCE, i.e. whether the unified kingdom of the Israelites actually existed or whether it is just a myth. I don't know of serious disagreements about the events since the late 8th century BCE onwards. DrorK (talk) 03:24, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

So, does everyone agree that Wikipedia articles should distinguish between myth and reality? May I put "mythical Land of Israel" and "mythical Jewish kingdoms" where appropriate, so as not to mislead our heathen or atheist readers? Or at least mention that the "Traditional View" is Jewish religious mythology and not the "View" of History Professors at Oxford or UCLA.

Also, I would disagree with DrorK, the debate is not between archaeologists and historians, it is archaeologists and real historians vs. "Bible historians".Fourtildas (talk) 04:04, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The Bible is not a history book, but many serious researches believe that historical data can be extracted from it. This has been proved to some extent when ancient scripts were found in archaeological excavations, and gave parallel accounts to the ones found in the Bible.

A for the term "mythical" - we can say that the flood described in Genesis is a myth (even though some researchers claim it is based on a real catastrophe), we cannot say the the united kingdom of Israel is a myth, because we do not know that for sure. Some researchers say it is a myth, some say it was probably a real entity, we simply don't have enough information at the present time.

The Land of Israel is a term which always refers to some kind of a geographical entity. When people talk about it as "the land of milk and honey" or "the promised land" they talk about it as a kind of myth, because anyone who lives in it knows it can be dry and difficult to cultivate in certain times, that it can have deadly earthquakes etc. When people talk about the land "between the River of Egypt and the Euphrates" they also refer to a kind of myth, because the borders of this land never stretched so widely. Nevertheless, there is always some kind of geographical references in the term "the Land of Israel". DrorK (talk) 06:21, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

For the record, that the united kingdom of Israel existed is a view held by an overwhelming majority of historians who specialize in that period. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 20:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Drork says: "many serious researches believe that historical data can be extracted from it".Jalapenos do exist says: "united kingdom of Israel existed is a view held by an overwhelming majority of historians who specialize in that period". This article needs a source for Jewish kingdoms (we are not supposed to cite other Wikipedia articles). Can one of you find a suitable source among these researchers, preferably a recent peer-reviewed paper or university level textbook. The sources in the linked article are decades old, so a reader might think this view is no longer supported. Fourtildas (talk) 02:26, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Phew, it's a bit like asking if I have sources to prove that the United States used to be British colonies. There are so many sources. I am not acquainted with the academic material, but I can give you archaeological stuff: Mesha Stele tells about the wars between the northern kingdom of Israel (Ephraim) and Moab, Taylr Prism, where Sennacherib reports his war with the kingdom of Judah (among other things), Siloam inscription, all kind of stamps, with names known from the Bible, found in Jerusalem and all across the country. As far as I know, the only part not 100% proved is the unification period described in the Bible. DrorK (talk) 17:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The academic material is based on interpretation of the archaeological stuff by historians. We humble editors are not supposed to play amateur historian. Histories (not "Bible history") of the region (sometimes referred to as the "Near East") go into considerable detail about the various peoples and empires in Palestine and neighbours, but do not mention Jewish Kingdoms. I have looked through the sources for Wikipedia articles on the period but they are a hopeless muddle of bible stories with a few bits of other info thrown in. A Wikipedia history article is supposed to tell me the predominant view of historians (plus significant minority views, if any). In it's present state, Wikipedia gives me no such info. If you removed everything that has only primary sources (as our policies require) such as the bible and the others you mention there would not be much left of these so-called "histories". Fourtildas (talk) 04:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

A stone was found buried in the ground telling about a war between the king of Israel and the king of Moab. To my naked ears it sounds like a strong reference to a kingdom called Israel, or am I wrong? DrorK (talk) 06:48, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no doubt whatsoever from any historian that there was a kingdom of Israel and a kingdom of Judah. A few ones are not convinced that the united kingdom did exist before them but this is a minority view. Maybe one day we will find something that clears the picture in one way or the other but in the meantime, this is what there is.Benjil (talk) 09:52, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Demography

The percent of Arabs and Muslims are not real. According to my source it is 19.5 % Arab and 16.1% Muslim.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Huss-mu (talk • contribs) 19:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. The article says (demographics section): "Making up 16.2% of the population, Muslims constitute Israel's largest religious minority. About 2% of the population are Christian and 1.5% are Druze." okedem (talk) 20:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The fact that this country article is continously locked is significant

I don't observe many other country/nation-state articles that are locked continuously as this one. I don't know how any of you expect this article to maintain the openness that is usually a standard of Wikipedia articles.71.113.252.54 (talk) 01:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not locked. It's semi-protected because of vandalism. Anyone can register for an account and once it's autoconfirmed they can edit the article. Sean.hoyland - talk 02:12, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

{{geodata-check}} The coordinates need the following fixes:

• Write here

62.90.45.107 (talk) 05:34, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

tweaked coordinates. Rami R 08:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Map

The little map in the intro section doesn't show the Golan Heights or Judea and Samaria as parts of Israel. Indonesia occupied West Papua, Russia took over Kaliningrad, and these are shown in wikipedia as belonging to Israel. The discrimination of Israel is against wiki's NPOV.Feindfahrt (talk) 23:16, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Link to the CIA world fact book

When you try to open the link, you get "Not Found The requested object does not exist on this server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has been instructed not to let you have it." [2] The website requires a capital IS, not a lowercase is. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/IS.html. I tried to fix the link on the page, but it goes back to lowercase. Does anyone know how to fix it? Thanks, Onopearls ^(t/c) 18:21, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I've amended it together with the url for the "cia" named ref. Sean.hoyland - talk 01:56, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Human Rights Violations

Something about the states human rights abuses and disregard for international law should feature in the article(Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)).

There is an article called Human Rights in Israel that allows for more detail than the main article. As for international law, International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict is a place to start. Schrodingers Mongoose (talk) 04:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

From my readings of the article, only the views of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are mentioned. I think the article "Human Rights in Israel" should be linked in the article, either as a sub topic, or under "see also" in order to expand and improve the article...Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

UN Security Council Res. 242 and 338 and Disputed Territories

UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 support the claim of Disputed Territories. The government of Israel declares that they are disputed and not occupied. Since the UN resolutions do not declare Israel is occupying these territories plus the fact that Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to Israel since there was no sovereign power ruling over the land before it was mandated, there is a strong argument that they are not occupied. The only neutral term between Occupied and Not Occupied is Disputed.

Editors in previous discussions that supported changing the title from Occupied to Disputed Territories:

-Avinyc -Tad Lincoln -DrorK (as long as all articles are consistent with the change) -Ynhockey -okedem -Benjil

Editors against changing the title and leave it as Occupied Territories:

-Peter cohen -CasualObserver'48 -RomaC -EoinBach -harlan -Ezzex

Despite some biased editors who wish to bombard this discussion with block quotes to lengthen their POV, it is quite clear there is a balance of debate on this topic. The argument to leave things as status quo because "it's the way it has always been" would not be a wise position to claim.

Arguments are also not considering that Disputed Territories is a NPOV title between the belief that the territories are Conquered vs. Occupied. Avinyc (talk) 17:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact e.g. UN Security Council resolution 478 (passed 14-0 in 1980) states the territories are occupied, and that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies. The International Court of Justice shares the view that the territories are occupied, and that the 4th Geneva Convention applies. There is thus not in fact a "balance" in opinion in the matter since Israel stands very isolated. --Dailycare (talk) 11:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I prefer to bombard the discussion with long blocks of very relevant quotes. Like this one from the Foreign relations of the United States, 1964-1968, Volume XVIII Arab-Israeli Dispute, Page 1015, Document 515, published by the US State Department Historian in 2004:

515. Memorandum for the Files/1/

Washington, November 8, 1967, 5:37-6:29 p.m.

SUBJECT Meeting Between President Johnson, King Hussein and Secretary Rusk on Wednesday, November 8 at 5:30 p.m.

Following the meeting between the President and the King, Secretary Rusk gave me some of the highlights of the discussion.

The meeting was cordial and a few minutes were spent in pleasantries, including the presentation of a cigarette lighter to His Majesty by President Johnson.

Discussions centered on the U.S. resolution currently before the Security Council. The President pressed the King to support the U.S. resolution. He pointed out that the resolution is to be a compromise resolution. The Government of Israel is not happy with the text; the Arabs are not happy with the text. It is difficult to draft a resolution that makes both sides happy, but it is imperative that both sides accept the resolution if it is to be implemented.

King Hussein tried his best to get precision on the clause with respect to withdrawal of Israeli forces. The President replied that it was difficult to be precise in one part and not on the others. There were imprecise statements in the resolution in several respects. The King then said that if it was impossible to be precise as to when or where withdrawal should take place, he hoped that it would be possible to be precise with regard to the question of who was to withdraw. The phraseology of the resolution calling for withdrawal from occupied territories could be interpreted to mean that the Egyptians should withdraw from Gaza and the Jordanians should withdraw from the West Bank. This possibility was evident from the speech by Prime Minister Eshkol in which the Prime Minister had referred to both Gaza and the West Bank as "occupied territory".

The President agreed to talk with Ambassador Goldberg in New York and he and Secretary Rusk told the King that we would be back in touch with him by noon the following day with respect to his suggestion for inclusion of the word "Israeli" before the word withdrawal in the resolution.

/1/Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, Country File, Jordan, Vol. IV. Secret. Drafted on November 11. An attached note of November 22 from Saunders to Walt Rostow's secretary, Lois Nivens, instructed her to put a copy in her files, since it was the only record of the President's meeting with King Hussein that would be available in the White House. The meeting took place in the Oval Office. The time and place of the meeting are from the President's Daily Diary. (Ibid.) harlan (talk) 11:30, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

'The occupied territory-section currently mentions that "Israel has applied civilian law to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, incorporating them into its territory" without mentioning that the annexation has been declared "null and void" and a "violation of international law" by the UN Security Council in resolution 478, which further instructs Israel to rescind the annexation. In order to reach a neutral description, this should in my opinion be mentioned in addition to or instead of merely stating that East Jerusalem is a "difficult question". Resolution 478 is mentioned now only in footnote 1 which pertains to a different part of the article.

--Dailycare (talk) 15:35, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

In a speech delivered on September 1, 1982 President Reagan called for a settlement freeze and continued to support full Palestinian autonomy in political union with Jordan. He also said that "It is the United States' position that - in return for peace - the withdrawal provision of Resolution 242 applies to all fronts, including the West Bank and Gaza."see AIPAC website The Reagan Planharlan (talk) 22:50, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Apartheid analogy

In the South Africa Wikipedia article, the apartheid history is mentioned already in the preamble. Israel's article should in my opinion feature some discussion on the segregation policies in place in the West Bank, and a link to the "Israel apartheid" article. In the History section, it's stated simply that Palestinian refugees "fled the country" in 1948, which gives the reader no hint that they'd have been purposefully expelled. --Dailycare (talk) 11:15, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

---

This text has twice been removed from the article for NPOV (occupied territories section):

This barrier and limitations on the movements of Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as limitations concerning their access to natural resources and the judicial system, have been compared to the former apartheid system of South Africa, see Israel and the apartheid analogy.

According to WP:NPOV "all significant views that have been published by reliable sources" should be represented. That a Western-type democracy would be practicing apartheid-like policies is certainly a "significant view", and the sources mentioned on the linked page include Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Amnesty International, The Economist, the architect of South Africa's apartheid and Israel's own attorney general. I'd therefore submit that both "significant view" and "reliable sources" are met, and the text should pursuant to wikipedia policy be in the article.--Dailycare (talk) 23:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

---

I re-entered this link to the text, as no comments disagreeing with this reasoning were entered. --Dailycare (talk) 21:45, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Mount Hermon picture must be removed!

There is a picture at the bottom of a mountain in Syria - Mount Hermon, that picture must be removed from this article, --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 10:16, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, it is not up to you to define the Middle Eastern borders. DrorK (talk) 12:13, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

It isn't up to you either. The internationally recognised borders are wuite clear. Mount Hermon is on the broder between Syria and Lebanon, not in Israel.--Peter cohen (talk) 12:43, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, not the UN. Wikipedia describes the facts on the grounds, not the wishes of certain countries or regimes. This picture was taken in a place governed by Israel, and accessible freely from within Israel. The fact that it is claimed by another country and the background for this claim is explained in details, but there is no reason to remove the image. Just as you may put images from Northern Ireland in the article about the United Kingdom, you may use this image here. DrorK (talk) 15:55, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

As you said, Wikipedia does not accord to the wishes of certain countries and regimes. The wishes of the Israeli regime should not be given WP:Undue weight to a minority point of view when the internationally recognised borders do not place any of Mount Hermon in Israel.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:26, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

This is not a question of wishes. Mount Hermon *is* under Israeli rule ; whether you like it or not, that's nor really relevant. Benjil (talk) 18:41, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I beg one of the administrators to put this article under higher protection. Apparently there are people who try to use this article as a platform for promoting political views. DrorK (talk) 18:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I've removed the gallery section (that includes this image) completely, as I don't really see the encyclopedic value in it. The article has enough images as is, and WP:IG seems to suggest that galleries are in general not advised. If it is decided to retain the gallery, I believe that including the image without any special explanation in the captions is a NPOV violation, as it implies the POV that the mountain is Israeli territory just like any other, and that is clearly disputed. Rami R 20:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Just as well. I've now noticed that it contains pictures of the Dome on the Rock.--Peter cohen (talk) 22:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Religious sites in Old City are not internationally recognised as being in Israel

In line with WP:NPOV, I have clarified that the religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem are in East Jerusalem adn under Israeli control to remove the misleading impression that they are internationally recognised as being in Israel.--Peter cohen (talk) 13:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

This issue certainly could attract an easy edit war. However, the wording that Peter cohen is trying to add doesn't remove any content, and it improves the paragraph by adding a couple words which do in fact make this a more WP:NPOV way of stating things. "Administered" is a pretty good way of indicating Israeli control, without making a more confusing statement on sovereignty over the area. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think "administer" is the right word since the temple mount is administered by the Palestinian Wafk but still under Israeli control. So "control" or "de facto sovereignity" is better. Also I think we should change the wording, "Such as the Israeli controlled/administered Old City" gives a much better flow to the text than "Israel controls/administers the Old City". Fipplet (talk) 20:28, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm content with that apart form the missing hyphen which I'm about to insert.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh I see that Supreme Deliciousness has changed it back. I'm happy with either version. Hopefully he or she can join the discussion here and we can reach a consensus.--Peter cohen (talk) 20:44, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Human Rights Violations

Something about the states human rights abuses and disregard for international law should feature in the article(Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)).

There is an article called Human Rights in Israel that allows for more detail than the main article. As for international law, International law and the Arab–Israeli conflict is a place to start. Schrodingers Mongoose (talk) 04:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

From my readings of the article, only the views of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are mentioned. I think the article "Human Rights in Israel" should be linked in the article, either as a sub topic, or under "see also" in order to expand and improve the article...Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

editsemiprotected

{{editsemiprotected}} Israek is not the only democracy. There are elections in Lebanon and Iran —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.247.60.143 (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Democracy is not defined only by elections but by other characteristics like the rule of the law, freedom of the individual, respect of the human rights. Lebanon and Iran do not share these characteristics. Furthermore, elections in Iran are not free (even if the results were true) and in Lebanon, elections depend on ethnic and religious factors contrary to democratic principles. Benjil (talk) 13:47, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 13:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

By your definition of democracy, Benjil, I would not say Israel is a democracy either. But I don't think democracy is as universal as you posit.

Israel's human rights record is on par with Iran's, according to the UN, if not worse. The Arab population of Israel faces widespread and documented discrimination. The Jewish population in Iran does not.

Your statement about Lebanon's elections depending on ethnic and religious factors is interesting, what do you actually mean? If you mean the Shii's vote for Hezbollah, or that the Christians vote for the Christian, then you would be correct. But what is the difference between the Conservative voting for the Conservative party, or the racist voting for the far-right Avigdor Lieberman.

What about Iraq? They have elections don't they? With regards to Human rights, I don't recall the last time Iraq went against int. law, but Israel refuses to get out of occupied land, the West Bank Barrier is illegal under int. Law also.

To conclude, I don't think its the only democracy in the Middle East, this is blatantly a POV statement that is only said by the the Israeli foreign office when their nation allegedly commits crimes. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 11:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)).

Israel's record on human rights is very high and better than even many western countries. The UN is hardly a credible source on this issue as it is a very biased political body. The Arab population faces no legal discriminations at all, they have the exact same rights as the Jews, in fact Jews feel discriminated - they have to serve 3 years in the army, the Arabs don't. The Jewish community in Iran is in such a good situation that most of Iranian Jews left the country and the tiny community left, being of no threat to the regime, is just not persecuted - that's so nice.

Regarding Lebanon, you apparently do not know that the mandates are distributed according to a religious and ethnic key. I quote wikipedia: "High-ranking offices are reserved for members of specific religious groups. The President, for example, has to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of the Parliament a Shi’a Muslim. Lebanon's national legislature is the unicameral Parliament of Lebanon. Its 128 seats are divided equally between Muslims and Christians, proportionately between the 18 different denominations and proportionately between its 26 regions." This is not truly democratic : in a true democracy, anybody can be President even if he is not a Maronite, and the seats are divided according to the demographic reality.

What about Iraq ? No idea, it does not seem to be a very free country for the moment. We will see in the future.

Israel is the only real democracy in the Middle East with maybe Turkey if you count it in the Middle East. That's not POV, that's a fact. You really should buy a plane ticket, come to see Israel with your own eyes, and you will understand that the propaganda you have been fed with is just lies Benjil (talk) 12:46, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• Besides the point. The UN is only considered bias when it comes to Israel.

Furthermore, the notion of Democracy is not universal. The claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is a slogan, a propaganda tool if you like, to legitimize the states alleged war crimes over the past 60 years. It does not need to be mentioned in the article because it creates more problems regarding NPOV than it sorts out. This is not a place to push an Israeli marketing campaign to audiences across the world.

This is an encyclopedia, and commenting that Israel is more democratic than the "West" is absured, how about the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the world that has no civil marriage.

In conclusion, the sentence "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" needs to be ommited or changed to read something more neutral. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 13:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)).

The notion of democracy is universal. Human beings are the same everywhere. The idea that democracy is just a western cultural thing is both racist and a way to legitimize dictatorships. Regarding the rest of your allegations, please understand that wikipedia is not a tool for your personal propaganda. You obviously know nothing about Israel so why are you even here if you have no knowledge of the subject ?Benjil (talk) 13:30, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

In so far as "democracy" exists, I believe that Israel is in league with western Europe, the USA, Canada, Australia etc. I have no doubt that an Arab who accepts the State of Israel and embraces Israeli custom may live as freely as all Jewish citizens. User:Interestedinfairness is simply pointing out that certain actions - of which Israel has been accused (note that I am not personally making accusations) - are, if proven true, just as bad as the actions of other entities who have been made to suffer for their actions. I refer to times that a US-led alliance may have repelled some national forces back to their UN recognised borders; or perhaps tribunals have been created to deal with certain perpetrators of specific atrocities, whilst others are ignored. "Democracy" has its limitations everywhere. We can mention far-rght parties in some countries, but to take an example that shouldn't upset anyone concerned with Israel: Lithuania banned Communism as an ideology after its independence from the Soviet Union. Its former Communist party had already moved away from its ideology of 50 years earlier - and is a part of the system which stifles communism - but new parties to this day cannot adopt Marxist beliefs. If the same thing thing had happened in Moldova, we'd know - paradoxically - the majority would be suppresed. In that country, the Communists have the presidency and the premiership. They have no true opposition at present. At their last elections, the claims of fraud did not come from the Liberals who came second but from neighbouring Romania! What you need to remember Benjil, is that "democracy" and all its tools pertain to a population, however big or small. Israel's alleged actions have been against persons outside of that population, even though within Israel itself. I know User:Interestedinfairness for our discussions regarding Kosovo. In pre-1999 Kosovo, the actions on the part of the FR Yugoslavia were not "barbaric acts against its own citizens" but "barbaric acts against a rebelling nation", in other words, a clampdown, a purge, or perhaps an operation against treason. You don't have to convince me personally of Israel's rights or wrongs, or that of the Arabs, I don't dispute anything! I just hope that you two users can reach an agreement not to bite at each other. Evlekis (talk) 15:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course no democracy is perfect and Israel is far from perfect. The issue was mainly about internal issues and not true or false accusations against Israel about its actions against non-Israeli citizens, as you said. I do not know user Interestedinfairness, but I have years of discussions about Israel and the Israeli-Arab conflict behind me, and I am pretty used to the usual anti-Israel lies/propaganda. I know where it comes from, I know what they try to do, and I am just tired to waste my time debunking the same old ignorant rants over and over again.Benjil (talk) 15:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Ignorant rants. WOW chill out, this is Wikipedia, not the UN and you don't have to convince me of Israelis democratic credentials. Not every one who apposes the actions of a state is anti-Israeli; in fact, My people have a Jewish population and were known for saving Jews during WW2. Its ignorant shits like you who make people dislike Israelis. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)).

If you are not anti-Israel, I am very happy, but you should refrain from speaking about "war crimes" and comparing human rights in Israel to Iran, because I dare not imagine what you would say if you were anti-Israel. And be careful, you could be mistaken for a racist when you say that just one guys makes you "dislike" all the Israelis. Imagine that I would say that "a shit like you" makes people dislike... whatever people you are from, apparently Albanian - and we know how well loved are the Albanians in Europe, so you should really think a little more before you open your mouth. Benjil (talk) 21:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Your not on my level of intellect to enjoy my company on Wikipedia. Get a life, and more importantly a good text book. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 21:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)).

Thank you to make my day start with a big laugh. Benjil (talk) 05:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Can the two of you not poke at each other as over the past day or so. To Interestedinfairness, there really is no need to refer to fellow users as you did late yesterday evening, nor to attack anyone's intellect. Try to exercise tact and assume good faith. Benjil has in a previous statement accepted that Israel is "far from perfect" so the user is clearly not promoting hatred or nationalism. The conversation as has been so far does not need to continue because it really is not constructive, and it doesn't involve any changes to the Israel article. Views will always be views and most Israelis accept that their nation is disliked because of the accusations made against them, and that in itself can be difficult to live with; particularly when all subjects have alternative views/versions of events and Israelis too have the right to defend their nation from remarks made by outsiders. To that end, Albanians are not hated in Europe Benjil. In the UK where I live, the average person is so ignorant that he wouldn't know whether Kosovo an island off the shore of Gaza! To most here, "foreigners are foreigners" but among those who know better: Albanians are known to be honest and hard-working. So no more attacks on nationals, nor countries please! Evlekis (talk) 12:14, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Erm, excuse me but the "average" British person is not ignorant and what do you mean "foreigners are foreigners", what a ridiculous statmeent, clearly you don't live in the U.K. or if you do, you live in some shit part up North. By the way, most people don't hate Israelis, most people hate the Israeli government.

Sorry I made a mistake, I mean the more intelligent British person is ignorant, the "average" is totally brain-dead! Come on Fairness, you know how much savy the British have when it comes to foreign people and lands? Show most of them a map of Europe and most will have a job to find Ireland!! And I live in the south, not the north; and I was referring to the fact that Israelis/Jews often find themselves victims of hatred because of their government. Governments often influence people's perceptions of nations. Evlekis (talk) 13:50, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Back to the article, I still think the Human rights issues should be mentioned in the article, I mean what's the point of trying to hide them??? (Interestedinfairness (talk) 12:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

An article already exists: Human rights in Israel. Evlekis (talk) 14:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah but its not linked in the article and its a usually a very popular topic in the media and so forth. Would merit a place in the article methinks. (Interestedinfairness (talk) 22:03, 24 June 2009 (UTC)).

It is already linked in the article, in the Government section. --Leivick (talk) 22:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Israel is not the only democracy and that is Zionist Propaganda. I think that that sentence should be removed. Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon have elections if that is your definition of Democracy. If democracies have to be nice to all people than Israel is discrimatry towards Palestinians. Palestinians have no rights there. And by the way, the UN is biased towards Israel because it is not stopping the conclift and letting Israel do it's barabric trotures. 99.247.60.143 (talk) 22:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Israel is the only certified-democracy in the Middle East. I'm not here to argue but I just wanted to make sure the above mantra doesn't somehow end up in the article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 14:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I never really understand arguments like this. What's best, cake or ice cream ? It's ice cream...cake's nice though. These are the polity scores for 2007.[3] +10 (strongly democratic) to -10 (strongly autocratic).

Cyprus 10
Israel 10
Lebanon 7
Turkey 7
Yemen -2
Jordan -3
Egypt -3
Iran -6
Syria -7
Kuwait -7
Bahrain -7
Oman -8
United Arab Emirates -8
Saudi Arabia -10
Qatar -10
Iraq -66=foreign “interruption”

Israel is often called the only democracy in the ME. So, it's a verifiably true statement about what is said about Israel. Not sure it's very informative by itself. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Both Lebanon and Turkey are democratic, so the statements is not true.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 09:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It says "Often called the only democracy in the Middle East" not "is the only democracy in the Middle East". It is true that it is "Often called the only democracy in the Middle East". It's not true that it "is the only democracy in the Middle East". The Democracy Index puts Israel in the flawed democracy category. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

By who is it often called the "only democracy in the ME"? Americans? fundamentalist christian Americans? I certainly have not heard anyone else say this, and why should this phrase even bee mentioned in an encyclopedia? Its not a fact in any way, but a false statement by Israel supporters. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 10:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"why should this phrase even bee mentioned in an encyclopedia?"....I don't think it should. It doesn't contain any encyclopedic information. It tells you that people that think it is the only democracy in the ME often call it the only democracy in the ME. Surprise. It's better to just have the bit that come after that i.e. "Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system and universal suffrage". Sean.hoyland - talk 10:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

The source is not consistent with general knowledge. According to Freedom House, Israel is #31, second in Asia - only behind Japan. Lebanon is 89. Qualities of a solid democracy - academic freedom, press freedom, freedom of expression (political especially), religious freedom, economic freedom, separation of powers, civil liberties, etc. These are things that Israel embraces and has institutionalized, which is why (most) people in America consider Israel to be the only democracy in the Middle East. That is their standard of democracy. Your obsession with the word "democracy" is nothing less than semantics. Having a "democratic" government means absolutely nothing if it is not consistent with democratic values. A country like Lebanon that allocates parliamentary seats based on religion/ethnicity to ensure power remains in the right hands does not scream democracy. Remember, democracy is just a word. See Democracy in the Middle East for a better overview]]. I'm not trying to pimp Israel here but your logic is not sound. Wikifan12345 (talk) 10:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikifan, "which is why (most) people in America consider Israel", exactly,, some Americans, considers this, Its wrong to say that "most people considers" when most people of the world do not, and some americans do.--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 11:02, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

"Most people" in the world don't live in a democratic country, and don't know what a democracy is. So we will do without their advice. Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle-East as a fact, not an opinion. Benjil (talk) 11:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Without attribution and a cite to specifically backup the statement it needs to go doesn't it or at least get a citation required tag ? Sean.hoyland - talk 11:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Again, semantics. If you guys are aiming to couch in some silly sentence that affirms Israel's obvious accomplishments as far as democracy is concerned, something like "Israel is the most performing democracy in the Middle East" seems appropriate though that should probably be clarified. Benjil is saying Israel is the only democracy in the ME in terms of the criteria for what constitutes a democracy. He is 100% correct. Being a thriving democracy in the ME isn't really much of an accomplishment when your neighbors condone female genital mutilation execute of homosexuals, subjugate of women and ethnic minorities, and initiate endless wars at the expense of social and economic progress. I can't see why anyone in their right mind would even try to dispute that. No doubt some Middle Eastern countries, such as Lebanon and Jordan have made great progress relative to their political and social circumstances, but Israel is the only "democracy" in the Middle East when actually contemplating the essential meanings of democracy. Please, this is elementary. I'll stop now to avoid SOAP but this needs to be understood. Wikifan12345 (talk) 12:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I favour either just removing the "Often called the only democracy in the Middle East" or replacing it with something actually connected to the various deterministic metrics that measure these things which do unambiguously show that Israel is indeed a high performing democracy in the region. You can't get a higher polity score than 10. My preference though is to just remove the "often called" bit. If you look at Ghana which I suppose is a comparable case within it's region relatively speaking it just describes the system. It doesn't make regional comparisons. I don't know. I just want whatever is there to mean something specific rather than being ambiguous and consequently easily challenged. Sean.hoyland - talk 13:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Something more accurate might be: "the only country in the Middle East rated "Free" by Freedom House" (usually, Cyprus is not considered in the ME; same for Turkey, see second map in Middle East).

Regarding a place like Lebanon - in Lebanon, a person's religion determines what position he can fill (PM, president, etc.). Representation in Parliament is allocated by religion, not population, giving a certain number of seats to each religious group (64 for Christians, 64 for Muslims, with subdivisions within, see Politics of Lebanon#Legislative branch). Sort-of a democracy, but not really. More like a game with "fixed" rules. Also note that in Lebanon, one of the so-called political parties operates a powerful armed militia (probably stronger than the nation's military), and uses it to enforce its will in internal confrontations. Not only are the rules flawed, the reality is even worse. okedem (talk) 13:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Largest City

An editor made the claim that Tel Aviv-Yafo is the largest city in Israel. This is true if we speak about the metropolis but not if we speak about the cities within their limits. Jerusalem has over 750,000 inhabitants and Tel Aviv only 390,000. So Jerusalem is the largest city in Israel. Benjil (talk) 09:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if this is this going to trigger an argument about East Jerusalem not being in Israel. I'll just watch. :) Sean.hoyland - talk 09:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

East-Jerusalem is still in Jerusalem, and anyway, West-Jerusalem has more people than Tel Aviv. Benjil (talk) 09:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok I forgot that "East-Jerusalem" means three different things: the part of Jerusalem occupied by Jordan in 1949-1967 ; in Israel today: the Arab neighborhoods ; elsewhere: all the territories of Jerusalem on the other side of the green line. So it depends of the definition. Benjil (talk) 10:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Further, if we look at Israel's borders recognized by the UN (the partition plan) then neither West nor East Jerusalem is "in Israel". The green line is not an international border. --Dailycare (talk) 10:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The UN recognizes Israel's borders from the pre-67 war, not 48. Israel endorsed the UN partition which would have put Jerusalem under international administration. Guess who rejected it? Wikifan12345 (talk) 10:42, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I will attempt to resolve this shortly by adding a 'Largest Metropolis' section underneath the aforementioned. I hope this works and that everybody is satisfied with this. :-) --Billsta1 (talk) 09:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikifan12345, could you provide a document where the UN would recognize any borders of Israel beyond the 1948 partition plan lines? As far as I know, the pre-1967 lines are armistice lines, not international borders. --Dailycare (talk) 15:00, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Uh? Egypt and Jordan occupied the WB and Gaza Strip. Jordan annexed the WB and Gaza was ultimately a proxy nation that had little autonomy. The UN borders were designated before the civil war began - it is not binding (or legally sound) to apply the same UN ruling following a civil war initiated by the Arab collective. Similar to the partition of India when 1,000,000 died and the borders changed somewhat because there was simply so much action. The West Bank should be returned to Jordan and Gaza should be given back to Egypt as that is consistent with how the country was before the 1967 war. Wikifan12345 (talk) 19:30, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 outlines the way to peace in the region based on a return to the pre-war (Six Day War) borders, meaning the UNSC views those borders as legitimate. okedem (talk) 20:36, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The 1967 lines are not, as far as I know, in any UN document referred to as borders. 242 states Israel must withdraw from territories occupied, but it leaves out the "the" specifically since the 1967 lines are not borders, borders must be agreed separately. In other words, 242 doesn't say that withdrawal from the territories occupied in 1967 would be sufficient. It may be, if that's agreed between the parties, but the UNSC doesn't say that the 1967 lines are borders. It may be that territories between the '48 and '67 lines aren't even ones Israel wants, since once the refugees are allowed to return these areas may have heavy Arab majorities. --Dailycare (talk) 20:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

No, you're misreading here. 242 states, specifically, withdrawal from territories "occupied in the recent conflict", meaning, territories captured previous to that conflict aren't even on the table. It omits the word "the" to not demand a complete withdrawal from these new territories, but leave room for agreed changes in the borders (as the UNSC recognized that the 1967 are extremely difficult to defend for Israel) - still, just discussing territories captured in 1967. So - the UNSC recognizes the 1949 borders are legitimate, plus some possible additional territories from 1967 that Israel gets to keep in agreements with the Arabs. But the 1949 territories aren't even debatable, in the view of this resolution. okedem (talk) 21:15, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

242 should be read in the context of the then very recent six-day war. There is no language there removing "from the table" any territories Israel occupied in 1948, in fact such would go against the preambular statement in 242 which emphasizes the inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by war. 242 says a solution should "include" withdrawal from territories recently occupied, not that it would be necessarily limited to that. I do agree with you in that a correct reading renders possible mutual agreements relating to borders, which should be "secure and recognized" - however 242 doesn't "recognize" the green line as a border --Dailycare (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The wordings have been debated ad nauseam. Israel did not occupy territories until 67, which was legitimate under the realities of war. Israel was 100 miles away from Cairo, and had the capacity to seize the country if the USA and allied states wanted to chip in - but the US said go back. It did, and later gave up the Sinai for a cold peace which mostly benefited Egypt. No one cared when the Arab powers occupied the Palestinians, but when the Jews came and the economy sky rocketed...oh man, now it's time to carve a Palestinian state! The UN is not the supreme leader of borders and cannot dictate the decisions of other countries. Many legal arguments exist for both sides, though it certainly is troubling that the international courts consider UN resolutions to be legally binding, truly bizarre. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

If I read this correctly, we seem to be in agreement then: the UN doesn't recognize the green line as an international border. --Dailycare (talk) 10:59, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The UN hasn't officially recognized any borders since 1948 outside of the Lebanon/Israel border, though Hezbollah now claims they are entitled to parts of Israel (beyond the agreed upon borders)...dubious at best. Same deal with SA and Yemen, India and Pakistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Western Sahara and Morocco, etc...etc... Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Stock Partisan Verbiage

From the first "conflicts" section: "Arab nationalists led by Nasser refused to recognize Israel or its right to exist, calling for its destruction." The notion of any nation having a "right to exist" is an Israeli and Western invention and has no precedent in diplomacy. You will find the phrase in English-language AP reports and Israeli negotiating platforms (a major reason negotiations lead nowhere) but it is not a stock phrase in other languages. You wouldn't expect an analogous phrase in Arabic or Farsi newspapers, for example. The more responsible Western newspaper editors use the phrase "diplomatic recognition" and nothing more; spin doctors arbitrarily substitute "right to exist" even though no country in history has EVER been diplomatically declared to have such a right. The phrase's inclusion biases the article, especially considering the editing restrictions which lend it a "set in stone" kind of smugness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.170.61.224 (talk) 08:15, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

There aren't any editing restrictions other than semi-protection just like many other articles prone to vandalism etc. If you would like to propose a change which is backed up by reliable sources so that it complies with WP:V then go for it. Sean.hoyland - talk 08:25, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The majority of the Middle East has at one point or another said "Israel has no right to exist" and then applied that reasoning to a series of failed conflicts. Your reliance on "language" recognition screams OR and semantics. Per Sean, find an RS and we can talk. Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Israel was established following the international recognition of the Jewish people's need for a state, and their right to establish such a state in Palestine. This right was recognized by the British in the Balfour declaration of 1917; in the San Remo conference of 1920, in which the various powers gave Britain the mandate over Palestine, with the express goal of establishing a Jewish state; and by the UN, in the 1947 partition plan. So "right to exist" makes sense in this regard, as a state which didn't exist before (in modern times), and was established by support of the international community. okedem (talk) 09:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Racist Country

It should be added to this page the following statement: Israel is a country where racism is not only accepted, it is the law. Here are my supporting documents: Palestinians and the Limits of Racialized Discourse Author(s): Joseph Massad Source: Social Text, No. 34 (1993), pp. 94-114 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466356 Accessed: 19/07/2009 18:30

United Nations Resolution 3379 http://daccessdds.un.org/doc/RESOLUTION/GEN/NR0/000/92/IMG/NR000092.pdf?OpenElement

"a Christian and a Jew, or a Muslim and a Jew, cannot legally marry in Israel" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel

Since racism is so prevalent and probably going to be the reason why Israel is attacked even more often and it is a reason often cited by the people who attack Israel, don't you think it would be fair to point out that Israel is a country whose laws are based on racism? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Willdw79 (talk • contribs) 22:54, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Israel is not a racist country. I think you want this article. Wikifan12345 (talk) 23:45, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

There's already a link to the main human rights in Israel article via the "human rights and liberties in Israel" part in the gov and politics section. That covers issues like marriage etc. I don't know whether it incorporates the US State depts report from February this year that talked about institutional/legal/societal discrimination against Arabs, non-orthodox Jews and other religious groups. Even Dershowitz has said "As a non-orthodox Jew, I feel very much discriminated against". Anyway, this article isn't the place for such things. Sean.hoyland - talk 03:15, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

LOL what a BS man.. you right on one point "a Christian and a Jew, or a Muslim and a Jew, cannot legally marry in Israel" but it got nothing to do with racism..its becuse of relgion reasons.. and any way they can go and marry in another country and israel will recognize marriage.. and if one of them convert to the other one relgion so they can marry.. and its not only about jews.. a Christian and a Muslim canot legally marry in the country ass well.. ther reason is that becuse of orthodox jews pressure all of the marriage system in the country is religious.. and only a religious authority (a priest a rabbi or Imam) can marry two people.. and they of course refuse to marry any one that is not from there relgion.. BTW sooner or later they will pass a law with civil marriage.. its just a matter of time.. and its the only part of the country so connected to relgion

oh.. and not only there is no racisem in israel's laws but israel is probably one of the countries with the most progressive Anti - racism laws. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nadave (talk • contribs) 13:11, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Not racist. Don't confuse religion and race. Judaism is a religion. Anyone of any race can become a Jew. I didn't think I'd ever pay Israel a compliment but I have to say they are clearly one of the least racist countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cloedn (talk • contribs) 09:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I also think it is worth mentioning that United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379. which was cited as evidence for Israel being a "racist country" was, in fact. revoked 18 years ago, by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 46/86 with a vote total of 111 in favor, 25 opposed, and 13 abstaining. Any attempt to use a discarded resolution that was rejected by an overwhelming majority in the UN is clearly in error, as is any attempt to provide Resolution 3379 as evidence without acknowledging that is was (quite soundly) revoked nearly two decades ago. SpudHawg948 (talk) 10:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Apartheid

I reverted the tid-bit from the Apartheid analogy article. It was undue and while clearly a minority VP, does not need to be expanded to such an extent. We would have to include counter-arguments which would take up way too much space. The link to the article is more than enough. That sort of information belongs here. Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

If you feel the link is enough, then please re-include the link.. --Dailycare (talk) 00:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Is the link to Human Rights in Israel already there? Wikifan12345 (talk) 00:53, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I meant the Apartheid analogy link which deserves mention on the page for the reasons mentioned above, and since it's not a "minority VP" but broadly accepted. I think this viewpoint is only "minority" in US mass media. --Dailycare (talk) 01:02, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The Apartheid analogy deserves no space in the article. IT's purely an analogy - an article that has gone through 6 AFDs and is an unfortunate by-product of the POV wars. Wikifan12345 (talk) 01:36, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. It's nothing but a propaganda tool, extremely removed from reality. okedem (talk) 05:26, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

hmmm seems to be getting quite soapy around here. Dailycare, that article is available from the human rights article. That's where it belongs. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

That's what I said. Wikifan12345 (talk) 06:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes but your user page has an Israeli flag and an IAF plane whereas mine doesn't. Also, could you remove the picture of Natasha Mozgovaya please because it's causing confusion in the pro-pal ranks. Much appreciated. Sean.hoyland - talk 06:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

<outdent> Haha you can't be serious? Mozgovaya is probably one of my favorite journalists as far as news coverage of Russia is concerned. I am not that familiar with her politics on Israel though I imagine she is quite liberal. It's not like she bleeds for Arafat or apologizes on behalf of Hamas and Hezbollah like a lot of people. I don't know why pro-Pal (which I really don't like saying) editors would somehow be "confused" over this. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:00, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and she's really hot. Wikifan12345 (talk) 07:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't serious and I made up the stuff about pro-pal editors being distracted by pretty Russian-Israelis. It could happen though. It's difficult to stay focused when someone looks like an angel. Yeah, it's a bloke thing. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

At least that's something we can agree on. :D Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:01, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Segregation is certainly not "removed from reality" or "only an analogy" but the complete opposite: for the Arab inhabitants of the West Bank, it's everyday reality. I can live for now with having the page linked to via the human-rights page, however if the comparison is made by further instances it should still go on the Israel page, whether Israelis like it or not. For encyclopedic reasons it makes sense that the main page contains information of this kind, since many people probably read the page to help decide, for example, where to go on holiday. --Dailycare (talk) 10:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

You might find some elements in the treatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank, but the "apartheid analogy" isn't confined to that. One of the clearest signs of this being nothing but a propaganda tool is that various users of this analogy can't seem to decide if they want to confine it to the territories, or include Arab Israelis, or just Arab Israelis, or some of the Palestinians, etc.

As with other matters, these analogies, like quotes from various "important people", are mostly irrelevant. We should present the facts - if there are, from instance, roads in the West Bank which only Israelis are permitted to use, we should present this fact, with Israel's explanation for that (security reasons, usually), and let the readers decide for themselves. An injustice doesn't need to be compared to "apartheid" to be understood, and labeling of this sort is usually a cover for lacking actual points of discussion - the clueless political activist doesn't know the facts, so can't present them. In lieu of this, he just says "apartheid", and hope this elicits an emotional response. We are not political activists, and are not here to elicit emotional responses. We are here to present the facts as fully and accurately as possible, and let our reader form opinions of the situation. Various analogies, even if common, should usually only be covered from the point of view of their use (who uses them, why, etc), and not given too much importance. The reader should learn of what actually happens in the territories, not about what other people label it. okedem (talk) 11:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Ditto. The Palestinian Authority has received immense support from the US, EU, and even Israel (dubiously). US tripled their aid 3 years ago and Israel continues to give 70+mill in taxes to the government which is incapable of providing even the most basic necessities. Palestinians are dependent on hospitals and social services in Israel, and because of the roadblocks and check points it can take a long awhile to get treatment. Certainly Israeli citizens (for the most part) are given priority, but that is the case in every country. If you want Apartheid, talk to Egypt. They have 1 million Sudanese "refugees" who have poured into the country as a result of a conflict that has continued because of Eygpt and SA control of the Human Rights Council. Egypt has passed laws that prevent Sudanese from working legally, effectively forcing them to do indentured servitude for food or leave. Guess where they are going? Israel. The Apartheid, fascist, racist Zionist entity. Any labor jobs in Cairo that are available tend to be reserved for the Palestinians. If you want to see a real refugee camp, go to Egypt where Sudanese are rotting away and there isn't even enough money to classify them as refugees because all the money is going elsewhere. Or go to Darfur where Arab Islamists rape women and children in the camps while no one cares. Same deal in Congo, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, and everywhere else. I know this is slightly SOAPing but continuing to couch in racist and intellectual dishonest rhetoric that is dependent on minority viewpoints is nothing less than offense. These sorts of debate should be reserved for ultra-leftest college campuses, not wikipedia. Wikifan12345 (talk) 12:30, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't quite follow this logic, apartheid isn't a difficult or vague word, and I don't see any reason why Israel-related text should have a dictionary of its own, as you may be suggesting. The reason people use the word apartheid is specifically because the resemblance is so striking. The reason I suspect in reality that some people have for opposing using the word in the context of the West Bank is that South Africa was embargoed responsive to the apartheid regime. Certain people emotionally attached to Israel don't want this to happen to Israel, however an encyclopedia shouldn't exist to serve the emotional needs of such people (by which I of course don't mean that these emotions would be wrong, just that this may not be the best place to try to express them). In this instance of course, we're not discussing adding to the text "Israel implements a system of apartheid in the West Bank", but that the measures Israel implements have been compared to apartheid. BTW Wikifan, you've veered slightly off topic... use Talk:Zimbabwe for issues related to that country. --Dailycare (talk) 15:03, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The comparisons some people choose to make, for their own purposes, are of little relevance. You can find any negative comparison you want, from both sides. We're not here to discuss, and take part in, the propaganda war. Let the facts (what actually happens) speak for themselves. Pushing the word "apartheid" is intended to elicit an immediate emotional response, substituting consideration of reality. Present the facts, let the readers form an opinion. okedem (talk) 15:46, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Exactly. Continuing to say "Apartheid" over and over again when people clearly do not know the definition is not a fair way to conduct a conversation. Most Europeans are far more emotionally attached to Palestine than most Jews, to the extent where they can't think beyond Carter or Rashid rhetoric. You clearly do not know the measures Israel has implemented in the West Bank. While the whole world economy has collapsed, the West Bank has gone up 7%. In spite of the settlements and moaning leadership, the security measures have effectively reduced attacks and there is practically no more armed gunman roaming the streets and dragging 10 year old kids to train them for holy wars. The irony is that Zionist Jews played a pivotal role in toppling the Apartheid in South Africa, some of Nelson Mandela's most memorable speeches were written by Zionists. It certainly wasn't the Arab states, they were more oppressive than the Apartheid. :D Wikifan12345 (talk) 21:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Let's calm down a bit.. as I mentioned above, we should aim to use the same vocabulary for Israel-related texts as for others. I also don't agree that most Europeans (being European myself) would be more attached to "Palestine" than to "Jews". The two aren't mutually exclusive, since there are plenty of countries where there are more than one ethnic group. We can further use "city" in Israel-related articles instead of "place where many people live" since people know what "city" means, and the same applies to other words. Which is not even what we're even discussing here, but more along the lines of "XXX is an area in Israel, which has been compared to a city". --Dailycare (talk) 02:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

If you are going to promote fiction please don't derail when you can't formulate an honest response. Leave Israel is an Apartheid regime at the door, thanks. Wikifan12345 (talk) 02:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Okedem I am concerned with your statement above, "We should present the facts - if there are, from instance, roads in the West Bank which only Israelis are permitted to use, we should present this fact, with Israel's explanation for that (security reasons, usually), and let the readers decide for themselves. An injustice doesn't need to be compared to "apartheid" to be understood..." In this case there are three voices -- one is the facts, which should speak for themselves; another is Israel's "explanation" as you call it. But where is the third voice? The critical voice, possibly the very voice that is provoking Israel's "explanation"? It is regrettable that some are applying the term "apartheid" to Israel, but we Wikipedia editors can't ignore this voice simply because we don't like what it is saying. RomaC (talk) 04:21, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Nobody is ignoring this "voice." Scholars have dedicated thousands of hours confronting this "voice." Facts should speak for themselves, but fiction or exaggerated truth (which dominates the Arab world) passed off as undisputed fact poses a serious threat to the deliver of accurate information. Also, there is no such thing as Israel's "explanation." Israel is not a single voice, it isn't a dictatorship or run by a oligarchy of like-minded individuals contrary to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Palestinian Authority, etc..etc...Israel possesses a series of accomplished scholars, political scientists, and skilled debaters who occupy positions in countries around the world. Couching in valid responses in coordination with Israel's "agenda" is intellectually dishonest and childish. Not to mention there are a variety of opinions that conflict, even between Netanyahu (restrict debates with Palestinian leadership, encourage a pre-preemptive strike on iran) and Lieberman (land for peace with conditions, political/economic response to Iran rather than physical attack). This is just an example. Wikifan12345 (talk) 04:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

No-one has suggested that "Israel is an apartheid state" should be entered in the article, but only a mention that the comparison has been made - therefore the analogy wouldn't according to the proposed wording be "passed off as undisputed fact". As a sort-of hypothetical question to Wikifan, if Israel was practicing apartheid in the West Bank, do you think this should be mentioned in the article? If it wasn't and only individual elements were presented along with "Israel's explanation", then the overall goal of the apartheid plan wouldn't be conveyed from the text at all. --Dailycare (talk) 14:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

RomaC - I did not intentionally omit the "other voice" in this, so don't read too much into it. If there's something substantial that voice says - for instance, something like "Palestinian leaders claim that Israel is using the security barrier to annex land for settlements", that's fine (this as opposed to - "Israel is building the barrier because it's a racist apartheid Nazi state", which is meaningless drivel). The only worthwhile mention of the "Apartheid" claim would belong in a discussion of media and public relations, analyzing the use both sides make of the media and propaganda tools.

Wikifan - "Israel's explanation" naturally refers to the official Israel, i.e. the official government position. While different leaders change viewpoints and positions quite often, some things change very little - for all these years the Israeli government's position has always been that the barrier is not a border, and not final, but simply a security measure, with no political meaning. It has testified to this position is court cases about the barrier's route, where, in some cases, the court forced it to change the route to minimize damage to Palestinians, arguing that an alternative route would serve the security needs just the same, with less harm to civilian life. okedem (talk) 15:10, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Map is Wrong

The Map in the top right is wrong - the West Bank and Gaza strip are part of Israel. 86.177.158.99 (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the map, even Israel doesn't claim that the WB and GS would be part of it --Dailycare (talk) 21:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I think your comments go a step too far. Rather than using this talk page to promote your hatred of Israel, just contribute politely to the discussions please. Avinyc (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 20:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC).

I thought I was contributing politely to the discussion. If you have sources stating that Israel does consider those territories to be within its borders, please share them. --Dailycare (talk) 21:33, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Israel area

According to article Israel, the country's total area is "22,072 km2". Acknowledging the sensibility of the issue, should not we reference this data to any sources? So far, I found that

Israeli MFA - 22,145 sq.km.
CIA - 22,072 sq.km.,
Infoplease.com - 20,770 sq.km..

What is your opinion on this issue? --Jim Fitzgerald (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

My opinion is that you're quoting wrong. The infobox actually has two numbers: "20,770 / 22,072 km2", with a footnote explaining the difference. You can find sources for those numbers under "Geography and climate". okedem (talk) 19:45, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

segregated schools

am i to understand from the article that Israels schools are segregated? that Arabs and Jews dont go to school together? Griffinde (talk) 14:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

See the main article Education in Israel which I think it's fair to say needs quite a lot of work. As it says, "Israeli schools are divided into four tracks: state, state-religious, Haredi and Arab". I think the Israeli Ministry of Education published a report earlier this year about the state of the education system but I haven't seen it. I assume that would also be a good up to date source for information about education in Israel. The NYU Law - Journal of International Law and Politics Issue 36 had an interesting piece by Zama Coursen-Neff, Children’s Rights Deputy Director for Human Rights Watch that covered the education of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel in some depth (along with several other articles of interest) if that is something you are interested in. Sean.hoyland - talk 10:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Arabs study in Arab and Jews in Hebrew, so they usually can't study in the same schools. Arabs also learn more about Arab history and Jews about Jewish history. I imagine that if Israel had made Jews and Arabs study in the same schools, so in Hebrew, people would have protested against the "eradication of Arab culture" or something like that. Benjil (talk) 11:30, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Important clarification - the parents can choose which school to send send their child to. Most Arab parents choose the Arab schools, so their child studies in their own language and history, but some send their children to the Hebrew schools (because it's closer than the Arab school, if they live in a mostly Jewish city; or because they want their child to be better integrated, etc). For instance, there was an Arab kid in the same class as I, in our Hebrew high-school. okedem (talk) 12:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

eu sou brasileiro e gostaria de falar como vosais mas não tenho com quem aprender por favor me ajude —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.43.111.151 (talk) 19:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Huh? okedem (talk) 08:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

something like this Sean.hoyland - talk 09:06, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, that's only very slightly more comprehensible. okedem (talk) 09:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe he's annoyed that there isn't a 5th track for Brazilian Portuguese in Israeli schools. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what a 5th track is, but I heard that in some schools you can study Portuguese. It might be the Portugal variety, though... okedem (talk) 19:11, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Endless anti Israel rants on this talk page

Could we please get a big warning sign at the top of this talk page reminding people that rants will be removed, theres an endless amount of some very nasty soapboxing here from time to time. BritishWatcher (talk) 21:08, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately I doubt that that would make the slightest difference to a POV warrior. It doesn't work in the evolution related articles. It's better to just remove the soap on sight as per the guidelines. They normally get zapped pretty quickly. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:33, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments about POV warriors are a little ironic considering what a strong pro-Israel slant this article has. I'm actually quite surprised it doesn't have a tag disputing its neutrality. We are told, for instance, that the UN "decided on partition" of Palestine, when the UN could not do any such thing -- it issued a recommendation, not a "decision." We are then told that the Zionists decided to accept the partition, whereas the Arabs rejected it. Well, anyone who has read Ben-Gurion's memoirs knows that the Zionists accepted the partition as a foot in the door so that they could then go on to take what they wanted, which was more than the UN partition and thus hardly "accepting the partition." And that is precisely what they did -- the Arab League troops did not intervene until the Zionist forces moved into land that was set aside for the Arabs by the partition (a fact that is virtually never discussed as it is inconvenient to the "besieged by Arabs" narrative). These are things you will never read in an article as slanted in favor of Israel as this article is. This article is virtually the poster boy for the argument that Wikipedia is essentially worthless as a source of objective information. It's hardly surprising that many would read this article and become angry about it. Larry Dunn (talk) 13:50, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. While that is not to advocate for the comments that have been made here - some are combative and offensive - this article attracts such harsh commentary because it is very POV. Trying to fix it is nearly impossible, though I always do suggest trying anyway, since you never know, you could meet with some success where others have failed. Tiamut^talk 13:59, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

And the problem there is that the state of Israel has a virtual army of POV warriors out there seeking to spin the media in its favor. This is not some crazed anti-semitic statement -- it's been reported on and the media group that handles this for Israel openly states as much. There are media warriors like Daniel Pipes and Debbie Schlussel whose entire lifes' work revolves around blackening Americans' views on Arabs (not to mention MEMRI). In that light it is more than a little amusing that there are those who would have the cheek to aver that there are POV warriors attempting to spin this article against Israel!

I suspect that even if I marshal my sources and provide extensive citations, any fact that the supporters of Israel do not like in this article would be deleted over and over again, and it would go all the way up to administrative intervention before they let it go. I have had this same problem with Iranians, by the way, for instance in the article about the Sassanid Empire (an early Iranian empire), which shows an absurdly inflated map of the size of that empire. Good luck putting a more representative size map in that page as it swarms with Iranian nationalists and there are few who edit the article from an objective point of view. But naturally that pales in comparison to the well-orchestrated full-court-press put into Israel's portrayal in Wikipedia. Larry Dunn (talk) 14:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Psh. -- tariqabjotu 23:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

You "never read" such things in this article, as they are nothing but your own beliefs, interpretations, and false claims.

Whatever you think Ben Gurion's motives were, is completely irrelevant. The fact was, the Jews accepted the plan, and the Arabs rejected it. You claim that even if the Arabs would accept it, the Jews would not abide by the plan? Maybe, but we don't do alternative history here, but actual history.

Once the Arabs rejected the plan, the proposed borders of it became irrelevant. You can't have your cake and eat it too. The plan suggested a way to partition the land without bloodshed. The Arabs would have none of it - they rejected the possibility of a Jewish state anywhere in Palestine, and chose to go to war. According to you, that's a reasonable decision - they can go to war, and at worst, if they lose, they get a consolation prize - the original border proposed by the UN. It doesn't work that way. You either accept a partition, or go to war - can't have both.

And anyway, about the Arab armies - you're just wrong. The Arab states attacked immediately after Israel's declaration of independence. On the very day of the declaration they declared their intention (see [4]) to invade Palestine to establish a single state there, again claiming the partition plan is "illegal"). Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv the next day (at 6 AM). On that day, the Yishuv controlled only a small part of what was supposed to be the Jewish state - basically, they controlled the areas intended for the Jewish state along the coast, and in the Galilee (only a part of it), but nothing south of Yavne or so (nothing in the Negev). This is when the Arab armies invaded, and not when you claim. Arab forces attacked every part of the Jewish state, with Jordanian forces invading Jerusalem, designated to be under international control.

Here's the gist of it - the Arabs wanted to destroy the Jewish state, thinking they could win big time, and destroy any chance of partition. They gambled, and lost. okedem (talk) 20:29, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Redundant spaces

I've reversed User:Green Giant's change to the layout of the source page that involved removing lots of supposedly redundant spaces in the layout of calls to citation templates. The change should have no effect on the content. Some people prefer citation templates, a frequent source of formatting edits, to be laid out in a very clear manner to avoid these errors; others would rather they took up as little space as possible meaning that more content is visible on the edit screen. I feel strongly that this sort of layout decision - something that is only visible to editors - should be left to the people who actually edit the page on a regular or semi-regular basis. GG does not otherwise apear on the first page of the edit history - dating back to January of this year. He therfore does not fall into this cateogory. Of course, I am fully aware of WP:OWN but I am also aware of WP:IAR which should take precedence in this case.

Do any regular editors of this page prefer GG's layout? I'm open to being persuaded on this. If there is desire for change, I think we should aim to reach a long-term consensus rather than risk edit wars. It is very hard to look at a diff which changes the source layout in this way and tell whether a content change has been smuggled in. Because this is a battleground article prone to attacks by vandals and editors not acting in good faith, there is an especial risk of such behaviour happening here.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• On the contrary, you should assume good faith - you could have dropped me a note before reverting.
• You shouldn't arbitrarily classify editors based on how long they have edited and whether they have edited an article (unless we are talking about one-edit vandals). I could just as easily argue that you, have only edited 7000+ times since April 2007 whereas I have edited 13,000+ times since January 2006. What counts is not the quantity but the quality of edits.
• There are a lot more redundant spaces than just in the citation templates - a saving of 2kb may not seem much to some of us but pages take time to load and not everybody has superfast-intergalactic connection speeds.
• My main objection to laying out the citation templates in a straight line is that it often breaks up sentences unnecessarily, for example the first sentence of the second paragraph of the lead of this article:

The modern state of Israel has its historical and religious roots in the Biblical [[Land of Israel]] (''Eretz Yisrael''), a concept central to [[Judaism]] since ancient times,<ref name=britannnicajudaism>{{Cite encyclopedia

| title = Judaism

| encyclopedia = Britannica Online Encyclopedia

| accessdate = 2008-12-30

| url = http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/307197/Judaism/35241/Israel-the-Jewish-people

}}</ref><ref>See, for example, [[Lech-Lecha|Genesis 12 and 13]]. ''[[Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary]]''. [[Jewish Publication Society]], 2001.</ref> and the heartland of the ancient kingdoms of [[Kingdom Of Israel|Israel]] and [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]].<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jew "Dictionary.com - 'jew.'"] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 16 Feb. 2009.</ref>

• as opposed to putting the fields together?:

The modern state of Israel has its historical and religious roots in the Biblical [[Land of Israel]] (''Eretz Yisrael''), a concept central to [[Judaism]] since ancient times,<ref name=britannnicajudaism>{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Judaism|encyclopedia=Britannica Online Encyclopedia|accessdate=2008-12-30|url=http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/307197/Judaism/35241/Israel-the-Jewish-people}}</ref><ref>See, for example, [[Lech-Lecha|Genesis 12 and 13]]. ''[[Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary]]''. [[Jewish Publication Society]], 2001.</ref> and the heartland of the ancient kingdoms of [[Kingdom Of Israel|Israel]] and [[Kingdom of Judah|Judah]].<ref>[http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/jew "Dictionary.com - 'jew.'"] Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 16 Feb. 2009.</ref>

• As it is I don't see any justification for laying citations out in a straight line other than that people will have just copied the blank template from the help page. Green Giant (talk) 10:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have now noticed that prior to your changes the layout of the cite templates were mixed. However I don't think the advantages of one format are as simple as you claim. If multiple citations and references are used in close proximity - as often happens in Israel/Palestine articles where people are listing who has taken a particular stance on something - it is often difficult to tell the article text from the main text.

There might be an argument for consolidating within an article towards either spacing the citations or not doing so, but this is something where there is no policy or guideline one way or the other. The closest thing to any guidance is the help page you reference above and in the examples there nearly all parameters are given separate lines with the exception of the authors' first and last names. If you feel that there should be a project-wide policy, then you could start a centralised discussion. In the absence of one, then the regular editors of an article should decide and not have it decided by someone who is not interested in the contents.

When people try to enforce their preference on e.g. AD/BC v CE/BCE, it is customary to revert them and go with the established style in the article. I don't see why the same should not apply in this matter. Indeed there have been a number of occasions where admins or arbcom have felt it necessary to take action against people wanting to impose their own stylistic preferences throughout the project rather than letting the editors local to an article or a project make up their own mind - dates and the use of infoboxes come to mind as examples.--Peter cohen (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Gaza conflict photos

I have two problems with them:

• First, there are two of them. Are you telling me that in the history of Israel, rockets being fired from Gaza are so important that it warrants not one, but two, depictions?
• Second, the type of media. Currently, there's a video, and then there's a chart.
  • The video is problematic because (a) they don't always load well, (b) from the article, you don't really see anything, and (c) it's just completely unnecessary (we can illustrate anything with a video, but we don't because the video can't, for example, demonstrate a tree better than a photo can). Now, I'd eat my words on (c) if the video shows a rocket actually hitting something in southern Israel. However, because (a) applies for me (as in, I can't get the video to play), I have no idea. From the only frame I can see, it looks like someone just surveying damage. Add on top that (d) the caption is so biased, it's sad ("daily life"; okay, thanks for sharing), and there's got to be something fixed.
  • The chart is problematic because, well, it's a chart. Is this a presentation? Add to that the fact that (a) it's not apparently clear what the chart is relevant to (the history section stops at January 2009, and the chart is from February 2009...) and (b) the chart doesn't demonstrate an apparent trend (rocket firings went up? down? No, the chart says that rockets "happened" and that's about it). It's, again, unnecessary because it adds nothing to the text; rockets were fired in February 2009; okay, we get it already. So what? And, frankly, it's an Excel chart, which just looks bad.

-- tariqabjotu 11:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok. But what policies do these pictures explicitly violate? NPOV? Undue? Many articles have pictures and I don't see how a video and chart could be this offensive. Wikifan12345 (talk) 11:31, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

What? Do you only understand wiki-acronyms? -- tariqabjotu 11:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I see a personal dispute with pictures/videos that isn't exactly consistent with core policy. Just because a chart "looks" bad does not mean it should be censored. IF a video takes too much time to load = it's probably your internet. It loads perfect for me. Wikifan12345 (talk) 12:06, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

The chart would be ok in an article about the Gaza conflict, but it is too low-level for this general article on Israel. The video I don't think is useful for anything, and it is mislabeled (this is certainly not daily life). Zero^talk 12:32, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It was daily life for hundreds of thousands of Israelis for over 8 years, and continues to play an important role in how citizens respond to threats. Drills are conducted every other day, and massive anti-missile stations have been positioned on the edges of Sderot to minimize casualties. You are seriously understating the importance of these pictures. In the last few years more people have been killed than ever before, and these attacks have been decisive in determining Israeli responses however severe they tend to be. Wikifan12345 (talk) 12:46, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Running and screaming through the streets? Daily life? For Israelis? Okay... Well, even if I were to believe that, they are not instrumental in illustrating a history that goes back thousands of years. Obviously, as the state is only 60 years old, there needs to be a focus on the last sixty years, but even then there is no reason to have two pictures that depict nearly exactly the same thing in a manner that suggests Israelis are just running and screaming through the streets for their lives all the time. The section is called "Conflicts and peace treaties"; those pictures relate to a conflict, but they depict it as a one-sided constant period of terror. -- tariqabjotu 13:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

"IF a video takes too much time to load = it's probably your internet." Oh, well, then, sorry for thinking that it would be better to have content accessible to everyone than have a video that's going to harp on for two minutes about something only tangentially related to the article so that those with the best Internet in the most developed nations can see how terrorized the poor Israelis are. Yeah, how stupid of me for thinking that.

And I'm also sorry for forgetting that removing anything from an article about the Israeli-Palestinian article will invariably seen as "censoring" by someone. This is why I stopped caring a flying flick about these articles so long ago; it's just such a pain in the ass. A more representative chart (if I were one for charts, which I'm not) would be File:Israelis killed by Palestinians in Israel and Palestinians killed by Israelis in Gaza - 2008.png because that, at least, (a) avoids depicting just a random month of no particular importance, (b) avoids making it seem like Palestinian actions happen in a bubble, and (c) is included in the relevant Gaza War article, but you know as well as I do that no one seriously proposing its inclusion would last a day with you standing guard.

You see a personal dispute because you don't see acronyms interspersed after every other word. I'm, therefore, acting like the human being that I am, rather than the machine you want me to be, the machine that scans a database to string together a few words that maybe, just maybe, make a coherent point. I presented an argument with coherent reasons that, at the very least, allude to various policies and guidelines and you don't even want to respond because I don't spell it out for you. You won't respond to even the most basic points -- that half the images under a section that documents forty years are from -- what -- the last five months or that the video has an extremely biased caption -- because I don't point directly to Policy A and Policy B. I'll ask you again; do you only understand wiki-acronyms? Because, if so, refrain from wasting even more of my time -- and yours -- by stepping aside. Let someone else respond, and let someone else make editorial judgments. Like it or not; you will have to interact with people; you can't just blindly revert and then dismiss your opponent's position as too "personal" to warrant a response. -- tariqabjotu 13:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you really an admin Tari? Statements such as,

sorry for thinking that it would be better to have content accessible to everyone than have a video that's going to harp on for two minutes about something only tangentially related to the article so that those with the best Internet in the most developed nations can see how terrorized the poor Israelis are. Yeah, how stupid of me for thinking that.

are extremely offensive and demonstrates how out of touch you are with the situation in Israel and the occupied territories. I really don't know how you came up with such an elaborate and off-topic response when my questions were very explicit: A) What is wrong with the pictures and video? Is it not consistent with the paragraphs? Yes, it is. Someone claimed this was not the "daily life" for Israelis, I explained why that was certainly not the case. Then you dubiously understate the pertinence of these rocket attacks with snobby comments like "poor Israeli's." I think the problem has gone beyond pictures and video to unfair assessment of user motivations that must violate policy. Wikifan12345 (talk) 13:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Offensive? How? The video shows Israelis running through the streets screaming. As the videographer surely knew, and as anyone who sees the caption (to say nothing of the video) can tell, the video is intended to show how much Israelis are suffering. I'm not denying that there is suffering in Israel -- of course, there is (and, of course, there is suffering elsewhere) -- but it is not our job to elicit sympathy for Israelis -- or anyone for that matter. That video is not illustrating a paragraph -- it's next to a paragraph discussing the Six-Day War -- it's there to do precisely what I said: show how terrorized Israelis are. -- tariqabjotu 13:33, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, cause you clearly have demonstrated a naive and partial attitude towards the history of Israel. Look at my posts and contrast them with yours. Extremely combative, abrasive, and unnecessarily mean. As far as the video is concerned, it is consistent with the paragraph and general knowledge. whether this elicits sympathy or not is relevant, I'd imagine 300 million+ celebrate when they watch those videos. This article is about Israel and as such tends to revolve around Israel. Your odd obsession over understating the experiences of Jews with snooty and ignorant comments such "terrorized those poor poor Israelis" does not exactly win the hearts and minds of editors. To actually question the "videographer" is utterly bizarre. I didn't know you could read people's minds. Did they teach you that at MIT? Wikifan12345 (talk) 13:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd be fine with putting a video of a rocket being launched from Gaza, if we can also include a video of Israel soldiers machine-gunning a crowd of Palestinian civilians and bulldozing their homes. Jrtayloriv (talk) 08:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Can I suggest that you two (a) cool it, (b) post a notice on a relevant project page asking for comment? Zero^talk 14:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikifan, I don't know that Tariq is here to "win the hearts and minds of editors". Wiki is not a battlefield, but in any case, there is a big difference between "editors" and "advocates". RomaC (talk) 16:17, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In my view it would be entirely reasonable for someone to regard the video as propaganda in the context in which it is presented. Someone could argue that it defines and limits the context of a conflict focusing on one aspect of it or that it presents a stereotypical image of victimhood when the reality is more complex or that it exploits suffering to elicit sympathy etc etc. There are many aspects of it that could be argued place it within the realm of propaganda. In the Gaza War article these kind of problematic issues can be mitigated by trying to achieve some kind of balance in the image subject matter. That isn't being done here. It's inherently flawed here because a conflict is made up of more than one party. It doesn't seem unreasonable to regard this as problematic for an encyclopedia which is trying to be neutral. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:02, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In this case I must join Tariq and Sean - these are simply inappropriate. Both are too specific for a broad-topic article such as this, and the video really gives no useful information as all, as opposed to the chart which is at least informative. okedem (talk) 18:20, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay trash it then. :D Wikifan12345 (talk) 19:24, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

When discussing the Gaza conflict in 2008 and Operation Cast Lead and the breakdown of the ceasefire, the article says that "In December 2008, a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel collapsed" but says nothing about the cause of this collapse. Why not include some reasons why such as the thousands of rockets being fired at Israeli cities indiscriminantly?!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 23dillon (talk • contribs) 16:09, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

And of course, don't forget to include the reasons why they were firing rockets into Israeli cities. It's not like they are just maniacs that are doing it for no reason to "poor Israel". If you want to put "poor Israel" bits in there that's fine, but then you should put "poor starving, machine-gunned Palestinian children whose homes have been bulldozed and who live behind a twenty foot tall concrete and barbed wire wall" to balance it out a bit, you know? Jrtayloriv (talk) 12:52, 23 October 2009 (UTC)