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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Okedem (talk | contribs) at 01:17, 23 November 2023 (→Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 November 2023). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Property Losses Estimate

The last sentence of the header reads: "According to Perry Anderson, it is estimated that half of the population in the Palestinian territories are refugees and that they have collectively suffered approximately US$300 billion in property losses due to Israeli confiscations, at 2008–09 prices."

However, the *total* national wealth of neighbouring Jordan (population >10M, greater than 2x the current population of the Gaza Strip + the West Bank) is $146 billion, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_wealth. Even if property in Israel is substantially more valuable per square foot (possible), Israel's total national wealth is only $1,046 billion or $1.05 trillion (same source), and Israel is an unusually stable/rich/technologically innovative country by Middle Eastern standards so the land in an independent Palestine has no guarantee to be as valuable as land in the state of Israel.

I submit that this sentence should be removed as not credible, or at least have some sort of qualification added to it providing context (such as the total wealth of neighbouring Jordan).

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 23 October 2023

{The definition of Palestinians on Wikipedia is currently - "descending from people who have inhabited the region of Palistine over the millennia." The references shown are all dated after 1970. Noah Webster 1828 has zero reference of A Palistine, therfore I submit that "over the millennia" be removed.} 2600:1009:B1C1:2624:584B:6B01:FC78:6725 (talk) 20:40, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The reference point you make is not so much the issue as is an editor mangled the intro at some point to make the line about “over the millennia” - which previously appeared in the middle of the sentence. Now at the end of the paragraph it comes across as too editorial and may need to be reverted. Mistamystery (talk) 20:35, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Seconding that it comes across biased to me as well, as written. Miladragon3 (talk) 02:14, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I restored back to previous wording per Mistamystery. "Millennia" is otherwise well sourced. JJNito197 (talk) 07:41, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Muslim immigration

In Origins:

For several centuries during the Ottoman period the population in Palestine declined and fluctuated between 150,000 and 250,000 inhabitants, and it was only in the 19th century that a rapid population growth began to occur. This growth was aided by the immigration of Egyptians (during the reigns of Muhammad Ali and Ibrahim Pasha) and Algerians (following Abdelkader El Djezaïri's revolt) in the first half of the 19th century, and the subsequent immigration of Algerians, Bosnians, and Circassians during the second half of the century.


According to https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.1949-3606.2012.00172.x

Between the years of 1871 and 1922, the land settled amounted to 360,431 dunams in the new Arab villages, with an additional 185,000 dunams by 1945.According to the same estimate, using settlements identified by this research, therewere 66,940 (6.5% of the Muslim population of Palestine) Muslim residents in 230 hamlets and villages that had been established between 1871 and 1945. Around a dozen of the villages were established by people who came from outside Palestine(Egyptians, Bosnians, Algerians, Circassians, Iranians, and Shiites from Lebanon).Some 25% of the villages were settled by sedenterizing the Bedouin, mainly in Northern Palestine, while an additional 25% were settled by Arabs from highland villages who moved down to the coastal plain because of population pressures in theirmother village. Another 39 villages were constructed on lands belonging to the sultanor absentee effendi landlords.Just over half the new villages were constructed on ruinsof old settlements, illustrating the degree to which the expansion of Muslim ruralsettlement in the Ottoman and British periods represented a return to areas that hadbeen settled in prior eras


The article should be clearer and say that there were around 67k Muslim immigrants into Palestine at the time, which only accounted for around 7% of Muslim Palestinians. According to Demographic history of Palestine (region) there were around 300k Palesitnians by 1800. Drsmartypants(Smarty M.D) (talk) 20:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2020 Genetic study

To avoid repeatedly reverting each other, I want to discuss the genetic study here. The source is https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites, and seems to be referring to this study: https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30487-6.pdf. The current phrasing in the article is "Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites."

There are two issues with the current phrasing:

  1. The source never says "Palestinians". The press release says "modern-day groups in Lebanon, Israel and Jordan share a large part of their ancestry, in most cases more than half, with the people who lived in the Levant during the Bronze Age, more than 3,000 years ago." The journal article itself says: "we assembled a dataset of 93 individuals from 9 sites across present-day Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon, all demonstrating Canaanite material culture", and " Finally, we show that the genomes of present-day groups geographically and historically linked to the Bronze Age Levant, including the great majority of present-day Jewish groups and Levantine Arabic-speaking groups, are consistent with having 50% or more of their ancestry from people related to groups who lived in the Bronze Age Levant and the Chalcolithic Zagros". It is unclear whether any Palestinians were even sampled in this study. Therefore, using it to infer the characteristics of Palestinians is inappropriate.
  2. Even if Palestinians are included in this work, to list them alone risks creating the impression that they are unique in this ancestry, whereas in reality all of the modern groups residing in the area seem to share the same genetic link. This is an important difference in trying to understand the Palestinian's origins relative to their neighbors.

Therefore, the study should either be introduced with an accurate phrasing (referring to all modern Levant residents), or removed altogether. okedem (talk) 22:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per the page notice, the article permits no more than one revert per 24 hours, and you reverted multiple editors twice. Unless you want to risk getting blocked, I suggest undoing the last revert and discussing further here for consensus. Duvasee (talk) 22:51, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm confused by your response. I did revert my edit as soon as I saw the admin message about 1RR. Then I came to discuss here. okedem (talk) 23:40, 18 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that Palestinians are represented separately from other Arabic-speaking groups in several figures. In Figure 5, Palestinians score higher by both measures on "Megiddo_MLBA+Iran_ChL" than all the represented Jewish groups except Iranian Jews. In Figure S4, Megiddo_MLBA and Iran_ChL are separated; we see that by one measure Palestinians score the same as Ashkenazi Jews on Megiddo_MLBA and well above other Jewish groups, while by the other measure Palestinians score well above all Jewish groups on Megiddo_MLBA. I believe it is reasonable to summarise what the article says about Palestinians. I don't agree that the existing sentence is unsupported by the article and I don't agree that the sentence suggests Palestinians are unique in this respect. If we want to turn it into a comparison by, for example including Jews and Bedouin, that would be fine but we would first have to decide whether the article is worth that much coverage. Zerotalk 04:46, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, thank you for tracking down that mention of the Palestinians and correcting me. As it only appears in the figures, rather than the text, I missed it.
Still, to me the bigger issue is the impression we're giving. If we say "Palestinians have this connection", it might or might not be unique - we're not telling the reader that, but we're not saying otherwise. However, we're saying this right after talking about "Arabization", implying the Palestinians might not have been originally Arab, but became such by conquest and adoption of language, religion and customs. Presenting the study at that point strengthens the reader's impression that Palestinians were local to Palestine, and then got Arabized. But the study tells us that most Arab groups share very similar levels of genetic connection to the Canaanites, and so this study cannot be used to say whether Palestinians originally were or were not an Arab people. That is - in the context in which it appears, the sentence does end up giving a false impression. okedem (talk) 05:50, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're talking about populations as if they have single origins - all populations are simply a mishmash and hodgepodge of genetic influences. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:30, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
When I say Arab origin, I include partial origins. Just like the article uses the term in "independent of the existence of any actual Arabian origins".
The article currently lists the Palestinians' genetic link, but then goes on to mention the Israelites, without any mention of their genetic link. In fact, it confusingly says "The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnoreligious group in the region" - leaving the reader in the dark about the existence of a link between them and the Canaanites. Furthermore, by listing the Palestinians, and then saying "Israelites emerged later", an ignorant reader might believe there was a clear Palestinian group at a time preceding the Israelites - a nonsense conclusion, but a plausible one for the uninformed reader. okedem (talk) 15:44, 19 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've been trying to think about how to properly phrase the text, but the basic issue is that discussing Palestinians when talking about antiquity is simply anachronistic and confusing. We can add a section about genetics, that would give a lot more context, but as is that single sentence is out of place. I'm removing it for now. okedem (talk) 04:39, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see anything wrong in the phrasing of the sentence, and a whole section on genetics seems a bit much. Duvasee (talk) 20:21, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Duvasee, right now it states that the Palestinians have a genetic link to Canaanites; in the next sentence it mentions the Israelites "emerged", but says nothing about their link. The next sentence discusses the Jews, but again makes no mention of their link. A reasonable reader will assume only the Palestinians have such a link. Either mention the link for all, or for none. okedem (talk) 22:53, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think a reasonable reader will see that this article is focused on Palestinians, and for the origin of the Jews they can go to Jews or History of the Jews or Genetic studies on Jews. nableezy - 23:06, 20 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Upon reading your comment it appears there is ground to your comment. I think your analysis is brought about some interesting points. I would write that Jews, Palestinians and other local groups are descended from the ancient Canaanites if this is what the source explains. Although I do think another source should be presented in order to back the Palestinian claim (since the source does not mention it).
Otherwise @Okedem assessment holds.
I personally think it'll be best to write that Jews, Palestinians and other populations descend from ancient Canaanite populations. That way it will be NPOV. But a source needs to be found for that. Homerethegreat (talk) 20:31, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 21 November 2023

I am requesting a review and edit on the current wording on the following sentence from SECTION: Origins:

“Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites.[92] The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnoreligious group in the region.”

Edit request: “Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites as do other Arab nations and Jews of the Levant.”

The original sentence is technically incorrect and misleading of the actual source.

Source cited: https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites

1. The source cited does not mention the term Palestinians – it refers to Jews and Arabs

2. The study the source is referencing is found here where Palestinians are mentioned along with Jews and Jews other Arab nations and Africans https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30487-6.pdf

It seems several users have been discussing this on the Talk Page below, however I am non-EC and am unable to participate. But on the basis of WP:BALANCE a more senior admin should be made aware of this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Palestinians#2020_Genetic_study

Further to Talk Page:

Comment by USER:Zero Please note that Palestinians are represented separately from other Arabic-speaking groups in several figures. In Figure 5, Palestinians score higher by both measures on "Megiddo_MLBA+Iran_ChL" than all the represented Jewish groups except Iranian Jews. In Figure S4, Megiddo_MLBA and Iran_ChL are separated; we see that by one measure Palestinians score the same as Ashkenazi Jews on Megiddo_MLBA and well above other Jewish groups, while by the other measure Palestinians score well above all Jewish groups on Megiddo_MLBA. I believe it is reasonable to summarise what the article says about Palestinians. I don't agree that the existing sentence is unsupported by the article and I don't agree that the sentence suggests Palestinians are unique in this respect. If we want to turn it into a comparison by, for example including Jews and Bedouin, that would be fine but we would first have to decide whether the article is worth that much coverage.

The information provided by USER:Zero is WP:SYNTH and WP:PST from the original research. The study graphs what USER:Zero is highlighting but the research does not reach the conclusion given in the article of the origins of the Palestinians or Jews.

Two supporting secondary articles below which highlight the key findings state:

“The report published last week reveals that the genetic heritage of the Canaanites survives in many modern-day Jews and Arabs…that most Arab and Jewish groups in the region owe more than half of their DNA to Canaanites and other peoples who inhabited the ancient Near East.” https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2020/05/dna-from-the-bibles-canaanites-lives-on-in-modern-arabs-and-jews


“This study suggests there is a deep genetic connection of many Jewish groups today across the Diaspora and many Arab groups to this part of the world thousands of years ago…Most of the recovered genomes could be modelled as having a roughly 50/50 contribution of ancestry from local Neolithic inhabitants and from a group that hailed from the Caucasus or the Northwestern Zagros mountains, in today’s Iran.” https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites


I hope after reading this you can see the difference between these two sentences, and which is more in line with the sources provided.


Current: “Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites. The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnoreligious group in the region.”


Edit request: “Palestinians share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites as do other Arab nations and Jews of the Levant.” Thanks. Chavmen (talk) 19:37, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This article is solely about Palestinians, we don't need to shoehorn anybody else to prove a point. That sentence is used in a way that shows literal continuity with the preceding one about the Canaanites, similar to how the mention of Jews proceeds the sentence about Israelites. If we are going to delve deeper, we should in its entirety, but this is neither the time nor place; both have their own articles (Genetic studies on Jews and Origin of the Palestinians). In fact content was moved from this article to that article for that very purpose. The whole reason this edit was even made was because someone inserted something[1] unwarranted about the supposed genetic kinship of the Levant, which includes Jews, introducing a segment about how Jews and Palestinians (and vaguely Arabic-speaking groups) are ethnic kinfolk, even though this is inappropriate given that the section is not defined or given credence by genetic studies. People should indeed be aware of the fact that Palestinians are related to the Canaanites, just like how the Jews are related to the Israelites. The opposite can also be true. This isn't controversial, and it is well established. Ultimately it depends on how one defines related and the context it is used in. JJNito197 (talk) 22:21, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The source says that Jews and surrounding Arab groups, including Jordanians and Saudis, are genetically related to the Canaanites. Using the same source to make a statement on solely on the Palestinians is not appropriate.
I propose adding a new paragraph at the bottom of the section. It can say something along the lines of "Genetic studies show that Palestinians, like other neighboring Arab and Jewish communities, have strong connections to regional Bronze Age populations, including the Canaanites. Genetic studies also point to the genetic relatedness of Jews and Palestinians." Dovidroth (talk) 06:03, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi JJNito197, the sentence about the Palestinians and the link with Canaanites isn't the issue, it's the clarifying statement after "The Israelites emerged later as a separate ethnoreligious group in the region.” That is not in the evidence provided as I stated above in my edit request.
If the attention is for the Palestinian people alone as it should be for an article dedicated to Palestinians, I'd be happy if the edit was to remove the clarifying sentence and then it can solely focus on Palestinians. Seems more neutral that way.
However, as Dovidroth points out, the source elaborates on Jews and Arab nations and I was under the impression we shouldn't be selective - if the research shows X - we write X. Thanks. Chavmen (talk) 06:21, 22 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
JJNito197, I'm confused by your description of the edit you link ("unwarranted", "supposed") . That edit accurately reflected the source the editor used. That is the same source now serving to support the sentence in question, except that it had been inaccurately edited to speak only of Palestinians, in a way that the source itself never does anywhere in its text. okedem (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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