Talk:Israel/Archive 90

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Long standing issue in lede

For years, the lede has downplayed the Arab history of modern-day Israel, and also its legitimacy.

“ Later rulers included the Achaemenid Empire, Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Empire, the Hasmonean dynasty, and, from 63 BCE, the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire. From the 5th century CE, it was part of the Byzantine Empire, up until the 7th century Rashidun Caliphate's conquest of the Levant. With the First Crusade of 1096–1099, Crusader states were established. Muslim rule was then restored in 1291 by the Mamluk Sultanate, which later ceded the territory to the Ottoman Empire. ”

None of the empire's mentioned are labelled as "conquerers", except, it seems, for the Arab Muslim Rashiduns, who, paradoxically, do not come from a different continent or culture, as do the Romans, Crusaders, etc. If we are going to mention civilizations that have had minimal effect on Palestine's ethnic and cultural make up, namely the Seleucids, then we might as well mention the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid and Ayyubid empires that have had enormous effects living on to this day.

The cherry picking on such an important aspect of any state's history deeply hurts Wikipedia's credibility on a page that is frequented by millions of people every year. There needs to be a discussion here that sets out clear criteria on the civilizations that deserve to be mentioned in this paragraph, and the weight given to each. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:20, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Islamic or Arabic history is often rather underplayed in many articles in this area, whether due to active expunging or passive disinterest I do not know. However, lead summaries should be brief, and some of what you mention above has simply come about by way of editors seeking brevity. But yes, objectively, there are almost certainly some issues with due weight and balance. At the same time, there is almost as much an argument to be made that all of this material should be removed as it should be expanded. As for the 'conquering' framing, tweak away! Iskandar323 (talk) 10:07, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

If my understanding is correct, what happened in the 5th century CE was the fall of the Western Roman Empire, one of the two halves which the Roman Empire had been divided into before and after the time of Constantine the Great. "Byzantine Empire" is just a name with which the eastern half of the empire, which continued to exist until the 15th century CE, was later labelled, the name stemming from Byzantium, the original name for Constantinople, the empire's capital. I think, therefore, the statement that the area encompassing modern Israel was part of the Byzantine Empire from the 5th century CE is, at best, misleading. Unless it actually ceased to be under the control of the continuing, eastern half of the Roman empire at some point, it would be truer to say that it remained under the control of the remaining part of the Roman Empire until the "Islamic" invasions.     ←   ZScarpia   12:16, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

The Romans and Byzantines in Palestine were "invaders" and "conquerers" as well. The Byzantine Empire was a continuation of the Roman Empire but it is treated as a separate entity in the literature. The point here remains the same: there is bias in listing and describing the civilizations that ruled over modern-day Israel. Makeandtoss (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

From the Byzantine Empire article:

"The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the "Roman Empire" or the "Empire of the Romans", Romania, the Roman Republic, or in Greek "Rhōmais". The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to Modern Greek as Romaiika "Romaic". After 1204 when the Byzantine Empire was mostly confined to its purely Greek provinces, the term 'Hellenes' was increasingly used instead. ... The Libri Carolini published in the 790s made the first mention of the term "Empire of the Greeks", which was an insult first formally attributed to Pope John XIII, with western medieval sources thereafter using the same terminology. This was done to reestablish equal imperial dignity to the Empire of the Franks and what would later become known as the Holy Roman Empire. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm. The name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans until the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire, that is, the Orthodox Christian community within Ottoman realms."

So ... the labelling started as a Papal insult and was based on Catholic European envy. Non-Orthodox Europeans like to think that the whole Roman Empire ended in the 5th century CE. It's worth remembering that one of the first acts of the "Franks" when the crusades started was to sack Constantinople.

If, as you wrote, the "Byzantines" were invaders and conquerors in Palestine, when did they do that invading and conquering? The 5th century CE, when, according to the current version of the article, Palestine became part of the Byzantine Empire?

    ←   ZScarpia   17:34, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Just remove all references to conquest, leave rulers and have done with it. This is some serious lead summary minutiae of very little import at all. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:05, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and enacted this. The lead summary shouldn't be getting into how each and every empire came to acquire this land plot. Iskandar323 (talk) 08:31, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

@Tombah: You're bloating the lead again with this diff, and blending macro and micro history. Failed revolts, for example, are not historical details that stand shoulder to shoulder with the passage of empires. More ambling prehistory is also far from helpful. The notability of the Hasmonean's semi-independence is debatable. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:19, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

For one thing, both sources ("The human habitation of coastal Canaan can be traced back to Paleolithic and Mesolithic times, and excavations have revealed that a settled community and an agricultural way of life existed at the site of Jericho by 8,000 bce."[1])("The southern Levan has been more or less continuously occupied for more than a million years."[2]) directly contradict this sentence: "The land held by present-day Israel saw the earliest traces of the human occupation, and was inhabited by the Canaanites during the Bronze Age." (The sentence it replaced: "Inhabited since the Middle Bronze Age by Canaanite tribes,[20][21] the land held by present-day Israel was once the setting for much of Biblical history, beginning with the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah, which fell, respectively, to the Neo-Assyrian Empire (c. 720 BCE) and Neo-Babylonian Empire (586 BCE).")     ←   ZScarpia   12:36, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, there seems to be some clear contradiction. It's also pretty useless without specifying the level of civilization being discussed. If it's the first source that's being preferred here, i.e.: the one referring to urban human occupation in the form of Jericho, well, that's a firmly Palestinian city these days, so wrong article. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:57, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

I replaced the part about earliest occupation, which is simply false and the source doesn't say otherwise. Some question exists of what "human" means; does it include pre-sapiens humans? The next part "inhabited by the Canaanites during the Bronze Age" is a bit silly, they are called Canaanites because they lived in Canaan so it's rather like "America is inhabited by Americans". Zero^talk 13:12, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Sources mentioning ancient human remains found in Manot and Misliya caves: [3][4]. On hybridisation - Race (1974), John R Baker, p11: "Very strange facts are revealed when we turn to the Neanderthaloid remains of the mid-Pleistocene found on Mount Carmel, south of Haifa in Israel, and in other parts of Palestine. A considerable number of rather well preserved specimens have been studied in great detail by McCown and Keith. The people who lived in this area at the time were remarkably varied in structure, some of them verging towards the Neanderthal, others towards the early sapiens type, others again intermediate. It was suggested by the American anthropologist C. S. Coon that hybridization between Neanderthal man and sapiens might be the explanation. This view was strongly supported by Dobzhansky, an authority on the origin of species and races." Modern genetic testing has shown that anybody with ancestry outside Africa (if I remember correctly) carries Neanderthal DNA, with the area including modern Israel being a favourite for where the hybridisation with Homo Sapiens took place.     ←   ZScarpia   15:58, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Source concerned with ancient settlement in the Levant: the examination of the remains of a neolithic shepherd[5].     ←   ZScarpia   11:59, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

“ A successful Maccabean revolt led to the rise of an independent Hasmonean kingdom, but it was gradually incorporated into the Roman Republic. A series of large-scale Jewish revolts against Roman rule were unsuccessful, and led to wide-scale destruction, a high toll of life, and mass displacement. ”

A series of -objectively- irrelevant and undue historical events that occurred more than 2,000 years ago are given more detail and weight than a macro-historical narration of the lands that make up what is today modern-day Israel. Again, we have to agree on an inclusion criteria, so this discussion doesn't have to keep popping up again every week. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:53, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I'll take advantage of this discussion to leave my opinion, suggestions and a question. Israel is a Jewish state, so it is relevant to mention the Jewish states that existed in the region in the led because it is the legacy of these ancient Jewish states that influenced the creation of modern Israel. The current led is almost perfect. I noticed that the introduction does not mention the name of the land held by present-day Israel, and this makes sense due to the various names that this land has and the polemic with the term Palestine that can confuse the reader. The article avoids citing the name of this land until it mentions Ottoman Syria, a term that can also confuse a lay reader and that I suggest be replaced by Levant, an equivalent term, or just "region". “West Bank and Gaza were held by Jordan e Egypt”, I think it's better to replace this with "were occupied by Jordan and Egypt". “whether Gaza remains occupied following the Israeli disengagement (in 2005) is disputed”, as I have suggested before I think we should put the year in this text. The question: why does the article only mention 260,000 Jews who emigrated or fled from the Arab world to Israel, while the article Jewish exodus from the Muslim world mentions 850,000? Why is that 850,000 not mentioned here? Mawer10 (talk) 00:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Being a Jewish majority state does not mean the state has no non-Jewish history. There's a big difference between mentioning supposedly ancient Jewish kingdoms, and mentioning revolts and their proceedings, in a space that should be taken up by a macro-historical narration. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

@Mawer10 – re your question – this discussion from the archive and this discussion about that number explains the reasoning for the difference in the number; briefly: 260k in the first several years after 1948; the rest came over a longer period of time; LavenderGroves (talk) 23:00, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

I've tried to trim the ancient history in the lead a bit further, notably removing the random bible reference: this does not need mentioning here; it is not a pertinent geographical detail. I also trimmed the duplication of the word 'caliphate'. Unfortunately, the remainder is rather tricky to summarize further without loss of fidelity given the long history. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:58, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

@Tombah: If you are going to blanket (rather than a partially) revert the work of other editors (against the guidance of essays such as WP:RV calling for restraint), it would be nice if you could at least dignify your reversions with a response to their explanations on talk as to why their work is so utterly disruptive/vandalistic that this is required. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:38, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

I thought your changes were definite improvements, and I'd support restoring them. My only minor quibbles:

• Could we cut "briefly independently" about the Hasmoneans? If so, a comma is needed between them.
• Do we need "only" in "The crusaders were only pushed back"?

Otherwise, it's an obvious concision improvement, with the trimmed detail better discussed in the body (or nowhere, for stuff like "During that period, much of the Hebrew Bible was written"). Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 07:11, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, very fair observation. Both of those are adjectival elements the removal of which would only more strictly enforce the summary style. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:33, 6 January 2023 (UTC)

@Eladkarmel: With this edit [6], could you expand on "not an improvement", which is not really a useful edit summary for a specifically full, not partial, revert. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:39, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

In the absence of any follow-up explanation of this revert, I have restored my edit, per a few of the reasons found at WP:BADREVERT, WP:REVERT etc. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:12, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

line on rights violations

i added a variation of the sentence i proposed up above, as it seems there is a solid consensus that there should be some coverage of the overall criticism of Israel's policies in its occupation. nableezy - 14:07, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Seems fairly uncontestable in its wording, and yes, the clear direction of the majoritarian undercurrent in the likely no-consensus-bound 'accusations' RfC. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:26, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I find your proposal reasonable. It's a fair compromise given the fact that most people in the RFC rejected the apartheid label but agreed on some sort of addition on HR violations. I would prefer to wait to see what the others think before adding it, but I won't object to that specific text. Dovidroth (talk) 18:53, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I agree with Dovidroth, and I was one who voted against the earlier proposal but in favor of adding a line about human rights violations to the lead. I generally find the addition, "Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians, and human rights organizations have accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity" to be reasonable, although I'd support shortening it to just the first clause ("Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians") because shorter is better, I'm not sure that "accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity" adds much to "drawn international condemnation for violating the human rights of the Palestinians", and widely-accepted facts (human rights violations) > accusations (war crimes/crimes against humanity), particularly where the distinction between the two is really just a matter of degree and the definition of "war", which in my view are besides the point. The point is human rights violations. Another open question: are the human rights violations only "in its occupation of the Palestinian territories" or is the scope broader? Just the occupied territories or also in Israel? I am unsure about exactly what is widely condemned versus "merely" an accusation of human rights organizations. Levivich (talk) 22:37, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

Israel discriminates against its Palestinian citizens (even if they enjoy de jure equality... and even that can be disputed) and rights groups are critical of its treatment of its Palestinian citizens, but the rights violations are much more severe in West Bank (and Gaza); numerous occupation policies violate the Geneva Convention etc. It makes more sense to me to focus on rights in the occupied territories in the lead, even though the reality is they are related. Jr8825 • Talk 02:05, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't like whole sentence, it's repetitive, takes up too much space and potentially gives too much emphasis considering it's still a very high-level lead. I agree with Levivich the first clause is enough, and I'd support that or similar text. Jr8825 • Talk 01:51, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

I think that first of all there should be broad agreement before adding it. In any case, these are pretty serious accusations (I'm not saying they aren't true), but maybe we need to get more opinions from the people. In any case, at the moment non intentional body has yet declared Israel an "apartheid" state or "committing crimes against humanity." I know it is under investigation at the Hague International Tribunal. So in my opinion we should wait for the end of the investigation and then add the paragraph according to the opinion of the International Court of Justice. As long as the matter is under investigation, in my opinion, this should not be added. Qplb191 (talk) 20:42, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The sentence says that human rights organizations have accused Israel of that, and that is objective fact. nableezy - 22:15, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I think you have put this comment in the wrong place? This section is about hr violations, not apartheid or the request to the ICJ. Selfstudier (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

No, I meant the last edit that was made. In my opinion, we should wait for the ICJ's decision before adding a paragraph that accuses Israel of "crimes against humanity." Israel has not yet been accused of this or defined as apartheid. This is under investigation and in my opinion, before adding such a paragraph, the general investigation of the International Court of Justice should be completed. What's more, the addition of a paragraph did not receive wide acceptance and in my opinion, more people's opinions should be heard before adding it. Qplb191 (talk) 20:54, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

After all, this matter is under investigation by the ICJ, in my opinion we should wait for that decision and then add this paragraph Qplb191 (talk) 20:56, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

I know that the ICJ is investigating the issue of Israeli crimes and the issue is under investigation and they are about to submit their opinion soon if crimes have been committed. Let's wait for publication and then we can add the paragraph for sure. Qplb191 (talk) 21:03, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The last edit refers to well documented and sourced human rights violations, there is a semi consensus in the ongoing RFC that it is in order to add something along these lines. The ICC investigation is about individual responsibility for potential war crimes and ICJ advisory is to do with the legality of the occupation, different issues. Selfstudier (talk) 21:05, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

But it is still only human rights bodies, not yet an international body that approves it, in my opinion, the conclusions of the ICC and ICJ should be heard and the paragraph added. To add this only according to the opinion of human rights bodies is not so well founded. Qplb191 (talk) 21:20, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

ICC and ICJ are about different issues. US Department of State is not a human rights body.Selfstudier (talk) 21:23, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

But still this paragraph is based only on a few human rights bodies, not an international body that confirms it, I'm not belittling it, but there can also be human rights organizations that say otherwise. The ICJ's investigation is about the Israeli occupation and its crimes, let's wait for its conclusions first. Qplb191 (talk) 21:29, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The request for an ICJ advisory opinion (it's not an investigation) is about the status of the Israeli occupation, a different issue. If there are human rights orgs that say Israel does not/has not committed any hr violations, I would be most interested to see sources for those. If you want to object to the added material, that's OK, but the reasons need to be something relevant. The relevant sources in support of the edit are in the article body already. Selfstudier (talk) 21:35, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

The ICJ has already said Israel has violated international law in its construction of a wall in the occupied territories. So throw that objection right out too. nableezy - 22:16, 16 January 2023 (UTC)

It's debatable, I'm not saying whether it's true or not. But I suggest that we wait for the response of an official international body such as the ICC or the ICJ, the international court investigating the matter and also the legitimacy of the occupation, and then before we add it based on some human rights organizations. I'm not disrespecting, but they are still not an official body that can be trusted for sure. It should be remembered that currently no official international body has declared Israel to be "apartheid" or to have committed "crimes against humanity" Qplb191 (talk) 07:34, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

hr violations are well documented for years, not being investigated at the ICC and nothing to with the current ICJ matter. Selfstudier (talk) 09:03, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

Since an editor is unilaterally deciding that the sentence should not go in, it seems we need another RFC since the existing RFC is about something else. Selfstudier (talk) 09:09, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

What are we looking for?

Honestly I've lost touch with what these whole discussions are about. This thread's name is "human rights violations in the lead" and now I see flame wars about Israelite kingdoms. What's going on? What's the goal now? Sometimes one must take a few steps back and look again at the bigger picture. Synotia (moan) 14:39, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Balfour Declaration, Yom Kippur War and other important stuff isn't talked about in the lead, but neo-Assyrian and Ptolemaic is. That's what needs fixing. Levivich (talk) 14:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The thread you were just commenting in is "2nd lead paragraph", there are different discussions going on. Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

The focus on the lede over the last week has highlighted a number of issues. There seems to be a general view that a reassessment is due.

The most pertinent point made above is that country articles should roughly have one paragraph on the history before the state was founded and one paragraph for after the modern state.

There is definitely room for improvement, and the conversation been editors with a wide range of perspective seems quite constructive so far.

Onceinawhile (talk) 23:23, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Examples of good country leads

FA country articles are: Australia, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Canada, Germany, India, Japan, Madagascar, Nauru, and Rwanda. (Please let us know if I missed any.) Does everyone agree that these leads are models to follow, or some of them? I'm not sure that I do, but I'm wondering if there is a generally-accepted model to follow. Also, do we have anything like MOS:LEAD specific to countries? I thought I remembered reading one once but now I can't find it. Levivich (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

For the most part, no, I dont think these are great examples of models to follow here. India comes closest to having a sustained international conflict, but nothing like the occupation and the criticism it has engendered, even with Kashmir and the more recent developments there. The difference here is that present tense Israel's policies have attracted significant criticism, not just some past atrocity (Germany), or controversy over its treatment of its indigenous population in the past (Canada), or past ethnic conflict (Rwanda). I dont think the criticism should overwhelm the lead here, but as a notable controversy about present tense policies and actions of Israel it belongs with more weight given to it than the coverage of those past conflicts in those articles. nableezy - 20:08, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Australia. Wonderful the ability of that lead not to mention 200 years of ethnocide, or declaring terra nullius a land that had several hundred tribes, speaking some of the most complex languages on record, perhaps a half a million people my ancestors and their kind got to work to 'black' out (Stolen generation). If you did someone a favour, they'd often thank you saying:'Thanks mate. You're a real whiteman'.Mum (pronounced 'Numb')'s the word.Nishidani (talk) 22:53, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it is increasingly dawning that most of the country leads are polished turds, though in Australia's case, the problem is a repetition of issues on the page, where little mention of the brutalization of aboriginal society is made. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:09, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

I haven't found a good one yet. I swear it's a global pandemic. Levivich (talk) 06:58, 22 January 2023 (UTC)