Talk:Israeli occupation of the West Bank

size

This is currently at 162 kB of readable prose, so it will likely need to be trimmed down as child articles are created for each of the aspects covered per WP:SUMMARY. In the meantime I might try to tighten a few things up. nableezy - 23:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article is very biased to be anti-Israel. It should be covering the point of view of the Israeli government or ts allies. I don't expect coverage of Palestinian occupation of Israel or Jordanian occupation of the East Bank. However historic Jordanian occupation of West Bank is also highly relevant to this topic. This would make the article even larger though! My POV tag is in relation to this. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: What exactly do you mean regarding a Palestinian occupation of Israel or a Jordanian occupation of the East Bank (aka Jordan). Jordan does not occupy Jordan, that doesnt make any sense to me, just as it wouldnt make any sense to say Israel occupies Tel Aviv. The Palestinians do not occupy Israel, where exactly is that coming from? We already have an article on the Jordanian occupation and then annexation of the West Bank, that is Jordanian annexation of the West Bank. As far as biased against Israel, in what way? Israel's positions on the topic are included with due weight accorded to them. Specifically, what in the article is biased against Israel? Just using the phrasing that overwhelming majority of sources use regarding the occupation? nableezy - 03:57, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I concur with Graeme Bartlett, that the article is highly biased is uses a very selective set of sources and topics. Attacks on Israel from the West Bank (both prior and post 1967), and post-1967. The Palestinian failure to build a functioning non-violent state following Oslo is also skirted around. Icewhiz (talk) 06:07, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

How are attacks on Israel from the West Bank relevant to the occupation itself? Especially before the occupation? You have any sources that connect the topics? What does the so-called "Palestinian failure to blah" have to do with the occupation? This article covers the occupation, a topic that is given a huge amount of attention in scholarship, which this article uses extensively. Id like specific examples of what is POV here. If you can provide sources that connect any of the topics you feel are not given space here by all means. But the idea that this article, with 682 footnotes cited to 332 sources, most of them books published by top tier university presses and peer-reviewed journal articles, is selective strikes me as astonishing. Have you even gone through the sources? Not liking what the sources say is not the same thing as being "biased". Specific examples of POV issues with sources showing what POV is not properly presented or is given undue weight please. Very specifically, what would you like to add, and what sources would you be using? What would you like to remove, and why? nableezy - 06:45, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

And for the record Graeme, the Jordanian occupation is covered in this article in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank#The West Bank in 1967. nableezy - 06:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

This is a widely written about topic area. While it is certainly impressive that this 370K article with indeed, 682 references was placed in main-space - the POV issue here is in the choice of sources (which mainly reflect a certain POV camp) and cherrypicking from within those sources.Icewhiz (talk) 07:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Baldly made assertion without any sources or examples. You cannot just say "POV". You disliking what the sources say does not make them POV. Again, specific examples of POV issues with sources showing what POV is not properly presented or is given undue weight please. Very specifically, what would you like to add, and what sources would you be using? What would you like to remove, and why? nableezy - 14:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Come on, don't be coy, you know damn well this article is heavily POV. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:04, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

In what way. Again, it dealing with a topic you find uncomfortable does not in any way make it "POV". nableezy - 16:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd say that attacks prior to 1967 originating from the West Bank are very relevant as historical background. For example, World War I has a section on background. What led up to the conflict occuring the way it did. I'd say that there are plenty of sources that attribute the Israeli decision to maintain military control of the West Bank to the historical background of it being used to launch attacks on Israeli civilians. That would be a major factor in the decision-making process - indeed, there was the offer immediately after the six day war where the West Bank except for Jerusalem would be returned to Jordan in exchange for a peace deal. Suggesting that a hostile presence in the area was unacceptable to the Israeli leadership. I don't have time to find sources for everything, but I virtually guarantee that they exist. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 09:42, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd say that there are plenty of sources that attribute the Israeli decision to maintain military control of the West Bank to the historical background of it being used to launch attacks on Israeli civilians. That would be a major factor in the decision-making process

there was the offer immediately after the six day war where the West Bank except for Jerusalem would be returned to Jordan in exchange for a peace deal.

I don't have time to find sources for everything, but I virtually guarantee that they exist.

History is written by reading sources, then providing a grounded account. It is not written by guessing what might have happened, or what one vaguely recalls reading somewhere and then hoping sources out there will confirm one’s impressions. Stating that the desultory attacks were on ‘civilians’ is a give-away counterfactual POV. This article's sourcing has been pared down to the absolute minimum. It could be easily expanded in each section to bloat out to three times this length. I advise against doing so. This is what would happen, minimally, perhaps as a footnote, however if the article were adjusted to clarify what two editors claim is an unsatisfactory point in the background.

Pre 1967. Israeli and Jordanian intelligence through the Jordan–Israel Mixed Armistice Commission worked together to prevent guerilla infiltrations from the West Bank, before 1967, and from Jordan afterwards. Israel was fully aware that whatever attacks might be launched from the West Bank, they were done with only Syrian support, and that Hussein’s army monitored and cracked down on any WB fedayeen militants attempting to infiltrate and operate within Israel. Responsibility for the ostensible casus belli of Samu, a landmine exploding an Israeli jeep on November 11, was Syrian. Israel’s reprisal at Samu, for geostrategic reasons, punished Jordan, which it knew to be uninvolved, in order to avoid escalation into a broader crisis that would draw in both Egypt and the Soviet Union were Syria itself attacked. The assault on Samu almost ruined Hussein, and was regarded as a major Israeli strategic mistake for destabilizing his monarchy, though Golda Meir, among others before and after her, had gone on record in 1958 as stating that if he were overthrown, Israel would immediately seize the West Bank. Israel never promised to return the West Bank. Secret talks did take place in November 1967 beween Moshe Sasson and West Bank dignitaries on one part, and between Yaakov Herzog and Hussein in London over an Israeli proposal to give back part of the West Bank. Nothing came of them. The overwhelming thrust of Israeli opinion (71%) was to keep it, and the Israeli cabinet could never agree on what exactly might be restored to Hussein.

References

References

'Early in Hussein’s reign, attacks initiated from the West Bank became a political liability for the young king, with Israel retaliating massively on each occasion. These fedayeen forays, funded by Syria as Israel generally understood, were destabilizing for Jordan. To cope with such incidents both governments exchanged intelligence through the Jordan–Israel Mixed Armistice Commission.'

Bunch, Clea Lutz (January 2008). "Strike at Samu: Jordan, Israel, the United States, and the Origins of the Six-Day War" (PDF). 32 (1). Diplomatic History : 55–76. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

'The next challenge Israel had to confront was attacks by Fatah guerillas who acted independently of the PLO. .Fatah’s general strategy was to drag the Arab startes into war with Israel by stoking the fires along the borders. It tried to use all the confrontational states as staging bases for the operations against Israel, but Syria was the only country that gave the Fatah fighters assistance and encouragement. The Egyptian authorities firnly prevented Fatah from operating against Israel from the Gaza Strip and Sinai. Jordanian opposition to Fatah was even firmer, but it was not always possible to prevent small units from crossing the border into Israel.'

Shlaim, Avi (2015) [2000]. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-141-97678-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Golda Meir ne semble pas avoir compris que cela concernait aussi le projet de s’emparer de la totalité ou de la plus grande partie de la Cisjordanie en cas de chute de la monarchie jordanienne dont elle a évoqué le principe avec des différents interlocuteurs.’

(In November 1967 just before the Samu attack) ‘Le gouvernement jordanien multiplie les mesures de précaution en Cisjordanie et lance une nouvelle compagne d’arrestations dans les milieux nationalistes, mais le Fatah dispose maintenant d’une vraie base locale lui permettant d’agir. Le 11 novembre, un camion militaire israelien saute sur une mine, faisant 3 morts et 6 blessés. L’affaire se déroule à quelque kilometres de distance de la ligne d’armistice à la hauteur de Hébron. On attend a des représailles contre la Syrie. Mais Eshkol et Rabin ne veulent pas créer une crise majeure qui impliquerait l’Égypte et l’Union soviétique. Pour esprimer leur “retenue”, ils décident de frapper la Jordanie pour la pousser à renforcer sa répression des activités palestiniennes, toute en signifiant aux autres pays arabs la puissance de feu israélienne . . L’événement provoque une quasi-insurrection de la Cisjordanie, la population accusant la monarchie hachémite d’être incapable de la protéger.’

Laurens, Henry (2007). La question de Palestine: 1947-1967, L'accomplissement des propheties. Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-63358-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

'In 1967 Glubb wrote that ‘ever since her repulse by the Jordan army in 1948, Israel had longed for an opportunity to overrun the remaining Arab part of Palestine, but as long as Jordan was the friend of Britain and the United States and offered her no pretext, Israel could not move.’ This view of Israel was shared by Jordan’s decision-makers who were convinced that Israel’s leaders had never given up hope that one day the whole of historical Palestine would belong to the Jews.'

Mutawi, Samir A. (2002). Jordan in the 1967 War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52858-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Post 1967

’Israel’s capture of the West Bank resulted in an influx of 300,000 Palestinian refugees into the East Bank, bringing the total number of refugees in Jordan’s care to 8750,000. ..The immediate task of the government was to settle them as quickly as possible . .With the help of UNWRA, by the winter of 1967 the refugees had been resettled in temporary camps in Amman and Jerash. Eleven permanent camps were later built to house the refugee population.. However, the Jordanian government’s failure to find a permanent solution to their problem, and Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank, made these camps fertile grounds for recruitment to the fedayeen movement. In a short time the camps were virtually military establishments and in the winter of 1967 Palestinian fedayeen began to cross the Jordan River to the West Bank to attack Israeli settlements and military posts. The fedayeen were supported by Egypt asnd Syria, although neither of these countries allowed them to operate from their own territory. The Israelis responded to the guerilla attacks with reprisal raids in the form of air attacks and artillery shelling of Jordanian army positions, border towns and villages. (editor's note 'collective punishment) The Jordanian government had initially been against fedayeen actions because of the grave consequences this would have for the citizens of the West Bank. However, popular pressure led to a reversal of this decision, but Israeli reprisals and the lawless activities of some of the popular Palestinian organizations eventually made a government clampdown inevitable . .By 1970 the use of mobile patrols, pursuit tactics and an electronic infiltration barrier had successfully put an end to fedayeen infiltration into the occupied terrritories from Jordan.'

.

'And regarding the West Bank and the Kingdom of Jordan, the proposal said not a word. Were security the only issue, Israel could also have offered Jordan a pullback in return for peace, demilitarization, and border adjustments. But this piece of occupied territory was a lost, longed-for part of the Land of Israel.'

For complete details see Raz, Avi (2012). The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18353-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

For a snap summary of the scholarship on why Israel did not, contrary to the myth you mention, offer to return the West Bank see Gershom, Gorenberg (7 May 2012). No, Israel Didn't Offer to Trade the West Bank for Peace in 1967. The Daily Beast. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Ive requested specific examples of what people find to be "POV" in this article. I have only gotten a vague wave towards supposed deficiencies with no specific examples or sources. As such I am removing the tag, as no discussion about supposed POV issues seems to be occurring. nableezy - 03:29, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Ping

@Graeme Bartlett: I'm quite curious about your response to the above. Since you placed a POV tag on the article you certainly owe everyone here an explanation (possible backed up with sources?) for your quite strange and unorthodox claims which at least in part seem to me to be drawn out of thin air. Please elaborate and don't hold back in teaching all of us for our educational benefit. Sincerely appreciative for any insight you can give, --TMCk (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Unsolicited comments

Clearly a ton of work went into this article and I want to thank the editors who created it for a tremendous effort. There's a wealth of content and sources here (682 citations!) on aspects of this conflict that deserve encyclopedic coverage.

Some (well, many... sorry) suggestions for both condensing and expanding this article:

1. Split it up, as noted above. Many if not all of the current sections deserve stand-alone articles. The main article should act as a guide to the reader from which to navigate, and the existing prose should be summaries of the sub-articles.
2. Add an overview/summary--more than the lead, or maybe not. But the reader should be able to gain a basic understanding in a reasonably short time of what "the Israeli occupation of the West Bank" is, even (especially) if they know nothing about it before reading this article.
3. Separate basic factual and historical content from thematic content. There should be sections spelling out the who/what/when/where/how, and separate sections addressing the "why," and topics such as causes, features, impact, perceptions, etc. As it is written now, the chronology is told along with the thematic content, and that makes it more difficult to gain an understanding of the basic facts (especially to someone not well-versed in the history such as myself). It's a lot of content in what I would describe as a book-like, sequential, chaptered format, as opposed to an online-encyclopedia-like, hyperlinked/indexed format, where a reader can jump around more easily.
4. Add a section that explains the geography, with ample maps, showing the borders, and other important features, preferably multiple ones for different key time periods. Probably a set for West Bank and a separate set for Jerusalem. Possibly a map showing where the West Bank is situated in the larger area. (I hope there are maps available for use.)
5. Add a section that explains who the main players are. The governments, parties, organizations, nearby/involved countries, etc.
6. Add a timeline section that just lists the major events with dates, for the reader's reference when they read other sections.
7. Add a chronology section that tells the history (expands the timeline, in prose), with subsections by decade or perhaps from one major event to the next, however might be best to organize it
8. Then have the series of thematic sections (essentially the existing sections discussing impact on agriculture, tourism, asymmetric war, etc.). These should be summarized with links to "main article" sub-articles.
9. The first thematic section should be called Causes. Easier said than written, but it's a necessary section.
10. The next group of thematic sections should be descriptive of the key features of the conflict, e.g., asymmetric war, legal status, also a section describing the major official "rules" or policies or restrictions imposed (for example, the changes to the types of goods that have been allowed or not allowed by different blockades over the years, changes to rules about movement, curfews, etc.)
11. There should be a group of sections about the relations between the major players/organizations/areas/what-have-you, and how they've changed. E.g., West Bank-Gaza, PLO-PA, Israel-US, Israel-Jordan, Jordan-West Bank, etc.
12. Then a group of sections about impact (on tourism, on agriculture, etc.), again, summaries with links to main articles
13. Last, a group of sections about perspectives/criticisms, etc., from various parties
14. You didn't think I was gonna write this whole long thing and not bring up NPOV, right? :-) I agree with the NPOV tag as it stands now, but I think the article structure should be adjusted, and the sub-articles spun off, and then any NPOV concerns discussed on the talk pages of those sub articles.

Overall, there is so much content to this article--and even more to the topic--that it's too much for most readers to read from start to finish. I think for most readers, they will want an overview, and then the ability to drill down on one aspect, and then come back to the overview, and drill down on another aspect, etc.

I apologize for the TLDRness of this, but it was a substantial article and I had a lot to say. Thank you again to the creators and to any poor soul still reading this. Levivich (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I dont think anybody can claim TLDR for your comment if youve taken the time to actually read through this article. I will go through these suggestions as time permits, but by all means be bold!. nableezy - 07:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

For the record, I understand why somebody might claim the article is "POV", though I emphatically disagree. The article covers an uncomfortable topic with regards to Israel, including actions that it has received international condemnation for repeatedly over the last 50 years or so. But it is a topic that is very much treated as its own topic by reliable sources, and unless somebody can actually demonstrate, with sources of course, how any part of the article is POV by the Wikipedia definition, then I dont know how I or anybody else are supposed to do anything about it. nableezy - 07:40, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the invite, but I'm new here and not yet extended. Even for noncontroversial changes, this being Wikipedia, I'm not risking making any edits. I'll come back and be bold later. Also, I want to clarify (if it wasn't obvious) that the new sections I'm suggesting above could likely just be summaries of other articles (or sections of other articles) on those topics, which are already written, e.g. the timeline can be taken from the main I-P timeline article, the maps on other articles are good (maybe cropped to focus on WB?).

I really do think the article is too long to have a productive conversation about POV, and it should be broken up and restructured as I said above. POV isn't just about what's in the article, it's also about what's not in the article. Since you're asking, one example I noticed is in the section The language of conflict, there is little if any discussion of Palestinian use of language, even though that's discussed in the sources cited. But as I said above, I think it'd be better to modify the structure first and then discuss any POV concerns. Cheers! Levivich (talk) 08:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 December 2018

Change wording of "It was a biblical site, moreover, they claimed, though it excavations only yielded Byzantine ruins" to "It was a biblical site, moreover, they claimed, though excavations only yielded Byzantine ruins" Frobird (talk) 21:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

done, thanks! nableezy - 21:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:FORK

It is quite obvious that the page is a WP:FORK of existing articles West Bank, Israeli-occupied territories, Status of territories occupied by Israel in 1967, Area C (West Bank), Palestinian territories, Judea and Samaria area, Israeli Military Governorate, Israeli Civil Administration, West Bank Areas in the Oslo II Accord. Can any one enlighten us about the need to create another page on exactly the same topic?GreyShark (dibra) 16:26, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

No, this is a top-level article that covers a topic that is itself treated as its own topic in reliable sources. You cant have a fork from multiple pages anyway, that makes no sense. This article specifically covers Israel's occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, much like Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip cover those occupations. Regardless, this is very much not a fork from any page, and it very much is not exactly the same topic as any of those pages. nableezy - 16:47, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Next you shall write Terrible Israeli occupation of the West Bank.GreyShark (dibra) 16:50, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Do you have a problem with an encyclopedia having well researched articles on topics that have thousands of sources? Or you more interested in making sure that Israel is only shown to be the beacon of hope for all humanity that we all know it is? nableezy - 16:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Next you shall write Long Israeli occupation of the West Bank? The topic of occupation itself is covered in the Israeli Military Governorate, Israeli Civil Administration and Area C (West Bank) articles. West Bank is the overview top level article, with notable sections in Palestinian territories, Israeli-occupied territories, Status of territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The articles which is parallel to Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip is Israeli Military Governorate (West Bank had separate status only under Jordanian occupation, not during Israeli military rule).GreyShark (dibra) 16:55, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

No, the Israeli Military Governorate article is an article on the governmental system established as part of the occupation. It is a child article of this. You seem to believe that having a single topic split out among a number of distinct articles means we should not have an article on that topic. While that may be to the advantage of those that want to make it impossible to document the Israeli occupation and the practices of that occupation in this encyclopedia, it thankfully has a basis only in your imagination and not Wikipedia policy. You seem to be upset that Wikipedia contains a well-researched and thoroughly documented article. Sorry for participating in such a travesty. nableezy - 16:58, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Military occupation is a military governance system.GreyShark (dibra) 17:07, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

There is Israeli-occupied territories and West Bank overview articles; West Bank has had no distinct status during the Israeli occupation period (unlike during Jordanian occupation period).GreyShark (dibra) 17:09, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

No, military occupation is a status under international law for when a state exercises effective military control over a territory outside its borders. The Israeli-occupied territories article covers the territories, and more than the West Bank. This covers the actual occupation of the West Bank, including EJ. From 1967 until now. The Military Governorate ended in 1981, and so obviously does not cover the entire occupation, and during the time it was active is only a piece of this topic. The West Bank article, again, covers the territory. This article covers a topic that is related to that, but not the same, and even a ten second look at the two articles would disabuse any editor acting in good faith of the notion that the two cover the same material. This article is a parent article to a host of other articles, with more articles to come I might add, it is not a "split" or "fork" from any of them. nableezy - 17:14, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

In the parallel case Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara redirects to Southern Provinces, while Western Sahara covers both the Southern Provinces and the Free Zone (region) controlled by the partially-recognized Sahrawi Republic; if we look at the parallel - this page should be a redirect to the Area C (West Bank), while West Bank should cover altogether East Jerusalem, Area C (West Bank) and areas A+B (also known as the bulk of Palestinian territories), which are now controlled by the State of Palestine. So, you should certainly create Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara (split from Southern Provinces) if you follow such logic.GreyShark (dibra) 17:29, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

I dont see how any of that is even a little bit relevant. This article covers a topic that is treated as its own topic by reliable sources. But sure, if there are sources that support a stand-alone article Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara then that should be created. The idea that I should create an article on a topic I have limited knowledge of or interest in is peculiar, but not all that important. This article however is none of the things that you claim it is. Again, you may want to make it so that Wikipedia does not cover this topic, however Wikipedia's policies dont support that position. Unless you are arguing that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is not a notable topic, and it would be hard to do so considering the over 300 sources in this article, then I dont see what youre trying to do here. If you think this merits deletion then WP:AFD is that way. nableezy - 18:15, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This is way too big of a topic to put into any one article. It deserves its own article, and it's distinct from all the other articles mentioned. In each case, this article appears to me to be a proper sub-article, not a competing fork article.

• Judea and Samaria area is an article about a place, of which the West Bank is a part. "Palestinian territories" is a logical sub-article of "Judea and Samaria area." "Israeli occupation of the West Bank," an article about events at one of the places within Judea and Samaria, is several orders removed from an article called "Judea and Samaria area."
• Palestinian territories is an article about multiple places, of which the West Bank is one. "West Bank" and "Israeli occupation of the West Bank" are logical sub-articles of "Palestinian territories."
• Israeli-occupied territories is an article about multiple places, of which the West Bank is one. "West Bank" and "Israeli occupation of the West Bank" are logical sub-articles of "Israeli-occupied territories."
• West Bank is an article about a place, not about events that happened at that place. "Israeli occupation of the West Bank" is a logical sub-article to "West Bank."
• Area C (West Bank) is an article about a place that is part of the West Bank. "Area C (West Bank)" is a logical sub-article of "West Bank" and "Israeli occupation of the West Bank."
• Status of territories occupied by Israel in 1967 is an article about the current status of multiple places, of which the West Bank is one. It's not an article about the history of those places. "Israeli occupation of the West Bank" is a logical sub-article of "Status of territories occupied by Israeli in 1967." (In fact, I believe this "Status of territories..." article should be converted into a list or merged completely into the sub-articles for each separate occupied territory.)
• Israeli Military Governorate and Israeli Civil Administration are articles about government organizations; not about the place those organizations govern; and not about events at that place. "Israeli Military Governorate" and "Israeli Civil Administration" are logical sub-articles of "Status of territories occupied by Israeli in 1967," "Israeli-occupied territories," and "Israeli occupation of the West Bank."
• West Bank Areas in the Oslo II Accord is a logical sub-article of "Israeli occupation of the West Bank"

Also:

1. Jordanian annexation of the West Bank
2. Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip
3. Israeli Military Governorate

One of these three things is obviously not like the others. The third item on that list should be, "Israeli occupation of the West Bank," not "Israeli Military Governorate."

"West Bank has had no distinct status during the Israeli occupation period..." – Is there a reliable source for this statement? It seems the West Bank has been treated distinctly by scholars and governments for some time. I don't understand what "distinct status" means, and according to whom?

Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara/Southern Provinces is a start-class article with multiple issues tags. Is that really the model we should be following?

This seems like a proper WP:SPLIT, not a WP:FORK. Levivich (talk) 17:44, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no such a thing as distinction between a "place" and "events in a place" in wikipedia. The best fit would be History of the West Bank for the matter.GreyShark (dibra) 18:20, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Greyshark09 so all events should not be covered because there is already an article on the place it transpired in? Do you realize how nonsensical that sounds? Clearly, you simply do not like the article, but you have not offered a single policy-based reason to call this a content fork; it is a well-sourced subject in its own right. Instead of going back and forth over it, start an AfD and let the community decide if you are correct.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 18:29, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

The topic of the article is WP:FORK of West Bank and is wrongly differentiating West Bank from the topic of Israeli Military Governorate, Israeli Civil Administration, Palestinian territories, Area C (West Bank) and Israeli-occupied territories. There was no separate status for the West Bank during Israeli occupation of WB, GS, GH and Sinai (1967-81), civil administration over WB and GS (1981-1994) and since the 1994 establishment of Palestinian Autonomy in 1994 in WB and GS. West Bank article already deals with territorial issues, but Israel never occupied the West Bank specifically in its current geographical definition. It is the same mistake as adding articles on Israeli occupation of Hebron, Israeli occupation of Nablus, etc. It is a misleading mistake - there is no specific occupation of WB and has never been.GreyShark (dibra) 13:40, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is far too large to place in History of the West Bank, which by the way is a section in West Bank. This is a part of that history, and due to its size and it being treated as its own topic by reliable sources needs to have its own article here. nableezy - 18:36, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

@Greyshark09: There is no such a thing as distinction between a "place" and "events in a place" in wikipedia, except:

West Bank and Jordanian annexation of the West Bank

Gaza Strip and Egyptian occupation of the Gaza Strip

Alamo Mission and Battle of the Alamo

Stalingrad and Battle of Stalingrad

Earth and History of Earth

...etc. Levivich (talk) 18:50, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is quite obviously a WP:POVFORK as presently construed.Icewhiz (talk) 18:54, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

It quite obviously is not as nobody can identify an article this duplicates. nableezy - 21:28, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

It is obviously a spin-off (and to a large extent a duplication) of West Bank, Israeli-occupied territories, Palestinian territories. WP:POVFORK does not only apply to duplicates, but also to spinoffs - Any daughter article that deals with opinions about the subject of parent article must include suitably-weighted positive and negative opinions, and/or rebuttals, if available, and the original article should contain a neutral summary of the split article. There is currently no consensus whether a "Criticism of..." article is always a POV fork, but many criticism articles nevertheless suffer from POV problems. If possible, refrain from using "criticism" and instead use neutral terms such as "perception" or "reception"; if the word "criticism" must be used, make sure that such criticism considers both the merits and faults, and is not entirely negative (consider what would happen if a "Praise of..." article was created instead).. Icewhiz (talk) 21:43, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

It cannot be a POVFORK if it is supposedly "forked" from multiple articles. This is not a "criticism of" or "praise of" article. This article does not "deal with opinions of [a] parent article". I see literally no relevance to this article in anything you just quoted. Creating a Criticism of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, that would be a POV fork. Again, yall disliking what the article covers does not make is a POVFORK, and if it were a POVFORK you would be able to identify an, singular, article it is forked from. This is a child article of West Bank and a parent article to a large number of other articles (again with more to come). Yall not wanting an article on the Israeli occupation is kinda cute but not based on any policy. You want to argue this is not a notable topic, well if you want to give me a reason to heartily laugh then feel free to make that argument. You both know that this is a topic that is treated as a topic in a literal shitton of reliable sources. That makes it a topic that merits an article on Wikipedia. You want to argue that one of the most meticulously referenced articles in all of Wikipedia is not notable, then go right ahead. As far as the incredibly dishonest claim that this is to a large extent a duplication of those articles, if you can find one sentence that is lifted from any of those then please present it. Making false statements is not an endearing tactic in a debate. nableezy - 21:51, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

"Occupation of X" is obviously a spin-off of X. I should've been more precise - a duplication in topics - not in content - which in this article has a pronounced POV slant that is different from the parent article. Icewhiz (talk) 22:04, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, this is a child article of West Bank. It is too large a topic to cover fully in West Bank, and so, per WP:SPLIT, it is split off and should be summarized there. nableezy - 22:14, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

This is a WP:FORK of West Bank with synthesis added info from Palestinian territories and Israeli-occupied territories. The West Bank article deals with the whole of West Bank from background of Jordanian occupation, including period of Israeli occupation, civil administration and from 1994 ceding control of areas A+B to Palestinian autonomy (which unilaterally proclaimed independence in 2012 as the State of Palestine). You can also create Israeli occupation of Nablus, Israeli occupation of Hebron and many more, but those would also be forks. Useless forks.GreyShark (dibra) 13:31, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Please read the links you post. This is too large to include entirely in West Bank, and so, per WP:SIZE it is split off. And besides that, most of what you wrote is just wrong (State of Palestine declared independence in 1988, not on just Areas A and B, but on all of the Palestinian territory, with Jerusalem as its capital ...). If you mean it is a WP:POVFORK, and not a WP:FORK (theres that carelessness again Greyshark, tsk tsk), then no, it very obviously is not as there is no single article you can name that this duplicates. If your position is that other articles cover bits and pieces of this one, well then, thats cool. I dont know how that matters, but cool nonetheless. This is a parent article to some of those, and a child article to West Bank. It very obviously is too large to be fully covered in West Bank. But thats the point you really want to make, but you know it isnt a point that you can win here. What you want is for this material not to be fully covered on Wikipedia at all. Thats the issue you, and Icewhiz, have with this. It is that it covers what you wish were ignored. Sorry, but that is not how Wikipedia works. Though I will say, if a section on Israel's practices in Hebron were added here and got too big, then yes, per WP:SIZE, an article on Israeli occupation of Hebron would be a fine child article to this. Thanks for the idea, pal. nableezy - 17:55, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

You are welcome isr, it is located at the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in Hebron.GreyShark (dibra) 09:56, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

'Mirrors and forks of Wikipedia are publications that mirror (copy exactly) or fork (copy, but change parts of the material of) Wikipedia.'

This article was written without ever glancing at other wiki I/P articles. It was written directly from a combination of my master files and some research on academic sources they had not covered. I did exactly as I did with the Khazars article, which was a dreadful mess I rewrote from scratch from sources and one which, again, you proposed splitting. Nishidani (talk) 15:11, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Annexation

On 28 June 1967, Israel hived off annexed East Jerusalem from the West Bank, extending Israeli "law, jurisdiction and administration" to it by incorporating it into its municipality of West Jerusalem.[145] This move was defended abroad as a purely administrative measure, to provide equal administrative services to all its residents, and not annexation, and the same applies to Israel's assertion of a claim of sovereignty on the passage of the 30 July 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel.

• The article clarified earlier that mainstream sources will reveal a lot of ideological or POV contamination.
• The slipshod use of ‘annexation’ is flawed since no one has so far rebutted Ian Lustick’s article Has Israel Annexed East Jerusalem Middle East Policy Council 1997 pp,35ff
• Changing hived off (neutral) to ‘annexed’ (POV) creates a dissonance in the paragraph and the article. The paragraph states Israel in 1967 did not annex EJ.Nishidani (talk) 08:46, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

  Most see this as an annexation. "Hived off" is decidedly non-neutral. However, a simpler solution would be to stick to the facts - diff - and say that Israel extended its laws and the municipal borders of Jerusalem over there. Why precisely are you claiming that "mainstream sources will reveal a lot of ideological or POV contamination" ?Icewhiz (talk) 09:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Icewhiz’s edit. Levivich (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course, but you do not appear to have examined what he did. Had you, you would surely have corrected the ungrammatical English he left the passage with. It is not 'hive off' that is problematical but his removal of information in the source that is completely uncontroversial. And secondly, one should not use talk pages to vote approval or disapproval. One is obliged to reason here.Nishidani (talk) 15:36, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

(1)

de-facto annexed. Regardless, no need for "hived off”

• False edit summary. (a) There is no mention in the source of a de-facto annexation. The source states the opposite, that Israel’s own position was that it was not annexed, de facto or otherwise.
• (b) Icewhiz cut out what the source explicitly said. I wrote:

This move was defended abroad to paraphrase the source’s To the international community this act was explained.

Icewhiz unaccountably erased this, though there is nothing POV about my paraphrase and its removal is quietly ignored in the edit summary.

• (c) In doing so Icewhiz garbled the English: 'Israel said this a purely administrative measure'.

When an editor removes what a source says without explaining the rationale, it goes back. Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I think we should take a breath, because this is going in a bad direction. You do not seem to be assuming good faith on the part of Icewhiz.

• I fixed the typo by inserting the missing "was." I also changed "applies" in the next sentence to "applied" for tense. This took me one minute. You could have fixed this simple minor mistake in less time than it took you to write out your criticism of the edit.

To avoid the endless IR squabbles, I try to avoid editing a text more than once a day. Had no one fixed it, I would have, having alerted the page, the day after. The point was needed to ask that editors not storm around an article, excising, challenging hastily but that they take care to review not only what another editor does, but also what their edits do. I'm sure the text has a good many simple things like this to fix, but adding to the oversights through haste isn't the way to help out.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• You seem to be trying to make a fight for the sake of making a fight. Let's not do this. Look:
  • "Hived off" is a British-ism; it is not a neutral term in American English (and perhaps other variations) because to "hive," as a verb, means to fill with bees. It carries the connotations of infestation and colonization. Not a phrase that is used in the source, and not the best word we can choose here.

Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia which does not prioritize any one version of English. Linguists note that idiom has for decades become cosmopolitan. You can here American idioms on the lips of English people, or even Angela Merkel speaking in German (shitstorm), and Australian slang in American films, etc.etc. "Hive off" which was used because in a large part of the Anglophone world it is a common term for the act of transferring any kind of asset to another entity (here and here, for example). I thought of it because I tire, writing Wikipedia articles, of the grind of using latinate terms, and that first came to mind spontaneously. One could write 'detach' 'separate' etc., but that kind of language is dull to my ear. No need, in any case, to get a bee in one's bonnet on sighting a nice international neutral coloquialism like 'hive off' surely? Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• • "Annex" is a word at least used by the source: "Internationally, both measures were interpreted as attempts to annex East Jerusalem unilaterally, and were criticized accordingly." Now, we could write, "Internationally, this was seen as an annexation, but Israel explained it was not an annexation because..." But that's really unnecessary. Who cares if we use the word "annex" or something else. I used "annex" in my earlier edit that you reverted, but I'm not going to fight about it.

I for one care. 'Annexation' etymologically means 'draw to oneself' 'attach'. Israel attaches something to itself, as opposed to 'hive off' which doesn't convey anything about taking something from someone else, but simply detaching a part of a whole, and in this sense was definitely more neutral. Precision is the basis of all good writing, and thought. Blame Karl Kraus for his execrable influence on my early formation and prejudices.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• • Icewhiz's solution is a good one as it avoids the semantic controversy altogether.
• The original sentence, "This move was defended abroad as..." is using a word ("defended") that is not in the source and has connotations (implies that it is something that needs "defending," or that the speaker was "defensive"). The source does not use the word "defended," it uses much more neutral words, like "explained," "asserted," "reasoned," and "express[ed]." So I agree with removing the word "defended." Again, I agree with Icewhiz's rewrite, which uses "stated."

We paraphrase sources, meaning we avoid using directly the language of the source, per WP:COPYVIO. The choice of the word 'defend' is to be understood in context, best expressed or explained or asserted by a remark by Asher Maoz, cited earlier in one of the books I use here, on the paradox of Israeli commentary at that time, which had two sides, one to a foreign audience critical of the measure, and another to the internal audience thrilled at the extension of Israeli jurisdiction.

‘In terms of internal Israeli politics, local leaders were not shy to admit that as a result of these enactments, East Jerusalem was now fully integrated within Israel. Asher Maoz aptly summarized this policy as follows:” while the leaders of the state were making it clear both within and without the Knesset that East Jerusalem had been annexed to Israel, the representatives of the state in international forums fervently denied that this was the result.'(Michael Mousa Karayanni, https://books.google.com/books?id=mmBiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 Conflicts in a Conflict: A Conflict of Laws Case Study on Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Oxford University Press, 2014 p.4)

Icewhiz did not only remove 'defend', he elided the international interlocutors. Rewriting 'Israel said this a purely administrative measure,' only begs the question: Given that 'Israel' was telling its own this was an 'annexation' and telling outsiders this is not an annexation, 'Israel' did not "say" tout court: it said one thing internally and another to the foreign community. By erasing ( "defended") abroad, Icewhiz, unfamiliar with the historical context, made out Israel had a single position in speaking. it didn't.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

When you are subject to strong criticism, you 'defend yourself'. 'Assert/explain/reasoned/expressed' all fail because the Israeli government representatives spoke differently according to which audience (foreign or internal) they were addressing. They didn't have to 'defend' the move in Israel, where they could clarify and indeed 'proclaim' enthusiastically the real intention. This double-speak is typical (I have even published on it) of all nations whose language is not readily accessible to people in the tediously monoglottal Anglophone world, and one will never capture the nuance by speciously neutral terms like 'assert/explain/reason or express, in my view.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• There is no functional difference between what the source said, "...this act was explained as..." and the current, "Israel said it was..."

See above. If one knows the context, there is an enormous difference.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• So, yes, I agree with this edit. And I think the edit summary (and the edits themselves) were obvious. I don't see the editor as doing anything wrong here.
• By the way I haven't reviewed any other edits and I express no opinion on those. Levivich (talk) 16:42, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

I dont really see this as too big an issue, so long as we dont say "annexed" as the sources, and Israel themselves, dispute(d) that. The rest of the removals were based on nothing at all. nableezy - 17:30, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

More problematical editing

Icewhiz challenges by his excisions the following RS.

• (a) Imseis, Ardi (Autumn 2000). "Review: Law, Reality, and the Oslo 'Peace' Process". Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 20 (3): 469–476. JSTOR 20468333. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (b)Rivlin, Paul (2010). The Israeli Economy from the Foundation of the State through the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49396-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (c) ICG (20 December 2012). Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem (PDF). International Crisis Group. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (d) *Malki, Riad (2000). "The Physical Planning of Jerusalem". In Maʻoz, Moshe; Nusseibeh, Sari (eds.). Jerusalem: Points Beyond Friction, and Beyond. Brill. pp. 25–63. ISBN 978-9-041-18843-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

With the deletion of text from (c) and (d) and the sources themselves from the bibliography, no account is given but meaningless assertions of opinion in edit summaries. If what to any passing eye qualifies as RS doers not meet your approval, preemptive removal is abusive. -Nishidani (talk) 16:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• I haven't reviewed these and express no opinion, but I ask you to please tone down your comments. It is not helpful to accuse people of being "abusive" or biased. If you disagree with the edit, comment on the edit and the prose; don't accuse the editor of wrongdoing for making an edit with which you disagree. This is already a contentious area, it doesn't help to escalate the drama with invective. Just argue the content, not the editor, please. WP:AGF Levivich (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Brill isnt the publisher, but that does not make the source "propaganda". I am reverting the edits as they have no justification besides an unsubstantiated claim that they are "propaganda". nableezy - 17:28, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Second example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Misrepresentation of source - no "must be" - and source itself is misrepresented (e.g. not published by Brill). Author is Palestinian propaganda minister who civil engineering academic background is irrelevant to the subject matter. 2000 Masterplan off topic in territory. The subsequent paragraph is a WP:SYNTH off of Malki whom himself is unreliable.)

(a)There is zero misrepresentation of the source, there is zero WP:SYNTH so this is a false edit summary. Icewhiz removed:

Israel then disbanded the elected Arab municipal council, transferring services like electricity supply from Palestinian to Israeli companies, and a ministerial decision established a policy that the ratio of Jews to Palestinians must henceforth be 76 to 24, , {{sfn|Malki|2000|pp=25–28}}</blockquote>

The source states:

’Complementary to this move was the disbanding of the elected municipal council in East Jerusalem. . .Services such as electricity which were provided by Palestinian companies were discontinued and moved to Israeli companies as a simple dictate of Israeli sovereignty over the whole city. . . Its first decree was to declare the need to preserve a demographic ratio of 76 Israelis to 24 Palestinians.

(i) Icewhiz claimed there was a 'Misrepresentation of source', for my writing must be in paraphrasing a ministerial decree that established as policy that the demographic ratio in Jerusalem of Israelis to Palestinians is set at 76/24. Policy guidelines established what will be implemented. A ministerial decree setting a demographic proportion to be observed in the future can be paraphrased as 'must' (Tovi Fenster 2004 pp.95-96 and others note that this was maintained by planning decisions right through to the early 2000s) but it would perhaps be better construed as 'will be'. All Icewhiz needed to do was change the verb to reflect that preference. He didn't. He sought a pretext for removal of the whole passage.

(ii) Icewhiz states that it is 'source misrepresentation' to write that the publishers are Brill and not Kluwer Law International. Almost universally editors who detect such as slip (Brill is the publisher given at google books here) simply change Brill to, say, Kluwer. To charge the editor with misrepresenting a source because he got the publisher wrong is absurd. That is not source misrepresentation (i.e. content manipulation) it is a careless piece of trivia, easily emended.

(iii)Riyad al-Maliki is dismissed as unreliable because, for Icewhiz, he is (a) a Palestinian Propaganda Minister. He happens to be the PA Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, and briefly held the post as Minister of Justice and Minister of Information earlier.(b)he has a civil engineering background. This is nonsense. Civil Engineering consists of dealing urban infrastructure. His MSs from New York Technical University in 'Transportation, Urban Planning and Engineering'. He taught the topic for 15 years at Birzeit University, and his appropriately titled (for this section) paper, ‘The Physical Planning of Jerusalem’ is perfectly w2ithin his professional remit, was written before he assumed he political posts mentioned above and his expertise is implicitly acknowledged by the fact his paper was published in a reliable source by Sari Nusseibeh and Moshe Ma'oz in a specialized volume on precisely this topic, one which is cited by Jerusalem academic experts in Israel like TAU's Tovi Fenster and Bar-Ilan University's Menachem Klein. Peer recognition determines RS adequacy, not editor’s opinionizing. If one doesn't like it one takes it to the RS board. True, the source is a Palestinian, one of two Palestinians of international distinction Icewhiz has removed. But one's ethnicity is not a reason for being 'eliminated'.

The removal was obviously polemical for the edit summary is completedly fictitious with no grounds in policy.Nishidani (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

But Levivich, that was abusive. Icewhiz removed, on the basis of the publisher being wrong in the citation, entire paragraphs and in fact other citations he made no comment on. He claimed it a misrepresentation of the source when the prose said a ministerial decision established a policy that the ratio of Jews to Palestinians must henceforth be 76 to 24. What the source says is Its first decision was to declare the demographic ratio of 76 Jews to 24 Palestinians as policy. If that isnt an abuse I dont know what is. (And google books showed the publisher as BRILL, effectively calling somebody a liar for bringing that error here is, well, filled with invective, isnt it?) nableezy - 17:37, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Third example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Wrong publisher, propaganda. I.e.

Icewhiz removed from the bibliography the source for (2) above. Again, one is not supposed to excise reliable sources on a hunch or on the grounds that a slip in publisher attribution is invalidating. To the contrary editors who note slips are obliged to bring editors' attention to them or correct them, not use them as pretexts for wiping out RS. There is no way an RSN board would endorse the idea that Malki and the work citing his paper is 'unreliable'.Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Fourth example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Advocacy, and off topic in this section

The passage removed was

An International Crisis Group report of 2012 described the effects of Israeli policies: cut off from trade with the West Bank by the Separation Barrier, denied political organization – which Israel's counter-terrorism agency includes as "political subversion" – by the closure of the PLO's Orient House, it is an "orphan city" hemmed in by flourishing Jewish neighbourhoods. With local construction blocked, the Palestinian neighbourhoods have become slums, where even the Israeli police will not venture except for security reasons, so that criminal businesses have thrived. {{sfn|ICG|2012|pp=i–ii,1}}

He also removed from the bibliography the source.

ICG (20 December 2012). Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem (PDF). International Crisis Group. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I.e. false edit summary. The International Crisis Group’s paper cannot be dismissed as ‘advocacy’. It has specialists do field work, summarize scholarship, assess a conflict, and provide policy options, like many other eminent sources, such as the World Bank used here. That particular report drew directly on Menachem Klein The Shift: Israel-Palestine from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict, Hurst Publishers, 2010 esp on. p.33.

East Jerusalem, disconnected from its natural hinterland by Jewish settlements and the Separation Barrier (which here takes the form of a wall), has become a slum. Many of its inhabitants find succor by supporting extreme Islamic movements. . East Jerusalem poverty and slums are breeding grounds for criminals, a fact that actually benefits Israeli authorities. East Jerusalem residents claim that Israel offers immunity to criminal gangs in exchange for their collaboration and provision of intelligence. In 2002, Faisal Husseini, East Jerusalem’s leading political leader, died, shortly before Israel shut down his Orient House, which served as the unofficial headquarters of the PLO in the city. Since then, East Jerusalem has lacked political leadership and institutions.

I preferred to keep the bibliography lighter and gave the more moderate analysis in the International Crisis Group report. If you didn’t like that you could have used its source, Menachem Klein who is far more dramatic. Either way, the edit summary was spurious, and the material should not have been removed..

Secondly in removing the source from the bibliography you left stranded two other footnotes nos.147,318 which, if the reader clicks on them, are dead. Thus your edit maimed the sourcing system. Again, this is thoroughly slipshod editing. In any sensible world, this would be a reportable behavioural problem.Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Fifth example.

Introductory paragraph of anti-PLO criticism has no place prior to describing what area-C is

Misleading again. It deals with a document signed by the PLO with Israel concerning the West Bank, the major part of which dealt with Area C.

The "Letters of Mutual Recognition" accompanying the "Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements" (the DOP), signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, provided for a transitional period not exceeding five years of Palestinian interim self-government in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. {{sfn|Rivlin|2010|p=159}} Major critics of these arrangements, headed by Raja Shehadeh, argue that the PLO had scarce interest or competence in the legal implications of what it was signing.{{efn|"On the Palestinian side there seems to be an apparent lack of interest in law, legal confusion and very serious lacunae in the laws passed after the agreements with Israel were concluded". {{sfn|Imseis|2000|p=475}}}}

Again Icewhiz have wiped out information that notes Israel and Palestinian authorities agreed to a transtional period for the West Bank, of which Area C is the major part. (Preamble and Article XI among other things)

That accord dealt with Area C, and was bitterly criticized by experts in the West Bank. Rivlin the source (again unaccountably removed) states what every one knows, and a reliable tertiary source notes that the arrangement was criticized by a West Bank lawyer of distinction, who went into details which I did not add for reasons of space, as to precisely why the PLO didn’t understand the implications of what it undersigned re Area C (Raja Shehadeh From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel And the Palestinian Territories, BRILL, 1997 pp.37ff. I preferred the tertiary source summary. If one wants greater clarity one just asks. Talk pages are where problems are resolved, especially if other editors don't even know, as per above, what the problem might be.Nishidani (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• al-Maliki, the PA information minister, is not a source that should be used without attribution. al-Maliki also does not use "must be" which implies active measures. On top of al-Maliki we have an improper SYNTH of sources - tying a stmt from al-Maliki into a therefore from another source. ICG is an advocacy group. Random anti-PLO criticism (but no praise, nor criticism of Israel) for Oslo is just advancing a POV when presented without other viewpoints. And finally - this whole mess is simply offtopic in the territory sub-heading. As much of this POVFORK article - the various sections lack coherence or sticking to the topic at hand, and venture to making various POV stmts and commentary inline with a certain POV.Icewhiz (talk) 18:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

The book is edited by Sari Nusseibeh and Moshe Ma'oz and published by a reputable publisher. It is a reliable source, but if you would like to challenge it then by all means WP:RSN is thataway. Repeating the same false statement (POVFORK) does not magically transform a false statement into a true one. The dishonesty about "must be" when he says established as a matter of a policy is just that, dishonest, and in any regard is emphatically not a reason to excise the material entirely. You also failed to address the other sources removed, seemingly based on nothing as your edit summary does not make any case for it and you have not said anything about it here. nableezy - 19:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPA, please. I addressed each of my removals. The entire content was off topic to the section. Futhermore the paragraph beginning with "Thereafter a property tax (arnona) regime was introduced which allowed Jewish settlers a 5-year exemption and then reduced taxes, while leaving Jerusalemite West Bankers, whose zones are classified to be in the high property tax bracket, paying for 26% of municipal services, while themselves receiving only 5% of the benefit (2000).[152] The result was that by 1986 60% of Arab East Jerusalem ..." is blatant WP:SYNTH - making conclusions ("the result..") not made by the cited source. So - SYNTH and off topic. Icewhiz (talk) 19:17, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no personal attack there. I attacked a dishonest claim as dishonest. Ive removed "the result" from the second sentence, satisfying that objection. Each sentence is supported by a singular source. nableezy - 19:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems I honestly called SYNTH. The ensemble in that paragraph is still SYNTHy - implying connections not made by the sources. It is also POVish in that it does not present the rather large economic advantages held by EJ residents (a coveted status - free travel and work throughout the region). But beyond all that - it is off topic and not related at all to the "territory" header. As much of the present article - we have random factoids and opinions scattered randomly around in an incoherent fashion.Icewhiz (talk) 19:55, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Dishonest was said in reference to the dishonest claim that there was a distortion in saying "must be" when the source said as a matter of policy. That remains dishonest. Your edit, in which you excised entire paragraphs, was based entirely on the inclusion of "the result"? Why didnt you just remove "the result"? Oh, because that was a pretext to doing a whole bunch of changes that are unsupported by any policy, I see. nableezy - 20:04, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Icewhiz you addressed nothing. You repeated your es justifications, and ignored the points I raised. All of your replies are unfocused, like now complaining I added criticism of the PLO without balancing it with praise or criticism of Israel (meaning then, if so, the section requires praise of the PLO!!!!!), the other party to the Oslo Accords!!!! There are hundreds of options for anyone seriously editing this encyclopedia. They include (a) raising the question on a talk page (b) noting a problem idem (c) asking the original editor for an improved source (d) asking the editor why he wrote this rather than that (with suggestions); (e) citing the original source on the talk page and then citing the derived paraphrase, and questioning its accuracy (just making an assertion they don't jive is not convincing); just waving policy flags without explaining what you take their pertinence to mean is again meaningless: you did this with Malki and above I cited the relevant material showing there was no, wp:synth as you asserted; (f) in a text thick with scholarly references all dealing with the topic matter, one has really only one option if one thinks an otherwise well-documented passage is out of place, namely (i) move it elsewhere on the page to a section where one thinks it more appropriate or (ii) to another related page. Removalism tout court of strongly sourced material is a sure indicator of dislike of the content, a desire to wipe it off the wiki record, i.e. of POV pushing of a censorious nature. (g) stating that a paper written by Malki requires attribution because several years later he became a political figure, and was no longer primarily a scholar/professor specializing in these issues at the time he wrote it, is again, slipshod. We judge a text's RS reliability by other factors, and your smearing him (BLP) as a minister for propaganda is a sure indicator of person al dislike, ignoring the fundamnentals point -was he qualified (yes), do peers ion the profession cite him (yes). (h) to use an error re a book publisher as an grounds for removing the book and the content sourced to it, is sheer wikilawyering, and, at that, unique in my experience. With all of these options, you chose simply to excise, without further ado, like raising the issue here.

So exercise a few options. If something troubles you, then raise the point, ask for clarifications for once before striking (out)preemptively. I.e. if you were dissatisfied with the DOP Shehadeh preamble, you should have asked about it and I would have provided more sourcing and material to finesse the passage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs) 20:07, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Read WP:OWN. Other editors may edit this POV mess, and there is quite a bit of off-topic and undue opinions throughout this mess that should be removed.Icewhiz (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course anybody can edit it. And anybody can revert edits made without justification in our policies. nableezy - 20:21, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't own the article. But I expect editors who want to edit it to know the subject, of which over 12 years, I have seen little evidence. Take your bit about 'the result was by 1986' as a blatant example of WP:SYNTH. You mentioned this, and immediately the phrasing was adjusted by Nableezy. here. That is just one example of how concerns are addressed, by a tweak, collaboratively. There was no synth in my view, since the two sources (not one as you make out) note the same issue. The gross neglect of East Jerusalem, the bias in the allocation of infrastructural funding, and the fact that Palestinians were being taxed to subsidize municipal services that went predominantly to Jewish Jerusalemites, or as Cheshin et al report, 'The taxes east Jerusalem residents pay are not reflected in the services they receive' (p.22). If you want an expansion on that, the figure I cited was conservative. The East Jerusalemites were even willing to keep paying if they could claw back some investment as low as 50% of what Jewish residents in the municipality were getting, i.e. accept to continue subsidizing Jewish residents if they could have half what the latter were receiving. etc.etc. The Palestinian arnona monies went for decades predominantly to Jews, those who paid it, the Arabs of EJ, got very little return from their taxes, and everyone noted a thorough decay of their urban infrastructure. And you think the one is unconnected to the other?

The point is, Icewhiz, there is a vast mass of detailed documentation out there on the impact of Israeli occupation policies on Palestinian livelihoods. You do not seem interested in having this material adequately, neutrally introduced into Wikipedia. You are excising stuff that is part of the established scholarly record on the thinnest of grounds, a detail of syntax, a choice of a word, a slip over a reference's publisher. One corrects these things one does not exploit them to excise objective data uncontestably in the reliably published record. Facts you dislike are not POV.Nishidani (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

And one final note. I have observed in the past deletions justified by this mysterious WP:Undue. What is due or not due, is invariably a subjective call, and should be used unilaterally to excise strongly sourced material only in cases where the argument is pretty clear-cut. It is not an all-purpose flag to wave while swashbuckling through a closely sourced article to gut it.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Levivich et al.

@Levivich: If you read the sources you would realize why the current text is a falsification.

1: West Bank is the name given to the area by Jordan based on the 1948 lines.

2: The Israeli HCJ opinion is not the same as the ICJ opinion as the source shows saying they are "both" the same is a falsification.Jonney2000 (talk) 02:05, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jonney2000: I apologize but I am not understanding what you are saying. Here is what the source says:

According to the HCJ in Alfei Menashe, both Courts ruled that the status of the territory under discussion, namely, the "occupied Palestinian territory" in the ICJ's terminology, and the "West Bank" (or "Judea and Samaria") in the HCJ's terminology, is one of "belligerent occupation" (para. 57).

— Domb 2007 p. 511

The sentence in the article is: "The status of the West Bank as an occupied territory has been affirmed by both the International Court of Justice and the Israeli Supreme Court," then citation [3] to Domb 2007 p. 511, followed by, "though the official Israeli government view is that the law of occupation does not apply," and further citations for that clause.

The edit I reverted changed that sentence to this: "The status of the West Bank as an occupied territory has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice, similarly the Israeli Supreme Court has held that the area designated by Israel as Judea and Samaria which excludes East Jerusalem is administered via military occupation,[3] though the official Israeli government view is that the law of occupation does not apply."

I don't understand how the first clause of the original sentence is not supported by the source cited. I also don't understand, with all due respect, how this edit changed the meaning of the sentence. It read to me like after the edit, it said the same thing as before, but in a grammatically-incorrect way. Levivich (talk) 02:18, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Levivich: maybe you should read pages 512 and 513 as if 511 does not note "the differences between the opinions [expressed by the ICJ and the HCJ] outweigh the similarities." I did change the page numbers to 511-513.

my own summary

A: ICJ Whole West Bank is occupied status cannot be changed ever!

B: HCJ Israel has decided to administer the territories as a military occupation. This status can change at any time and does not apply to East Jerusalem which is part of the West Bank but not part of Judea and Samaria.Jonney2000 (talk) 02:44, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jonney2000:I changed it to specify that HCJ doesn't consider EJ "occupied." OK now? Levivich (talk) 03:35, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

One of the huge ironies of one of the earliest HCJ decisions was that the majority voted in one of the key cases that EJ was in Israel because the Palestinian defendants in a case involving the transport of antiques from Hebron to their shop in East Jerusalem claimed that Jordanian law applied (same area), and in it EJ was not a foreign country, and hence the conveyance of the goods did not require an export permit. When this was knocked back by a military court, they petitioned the HCJ, and two of the presiding 3 judges quoted their attorney's admission that EJ was now part of Israel, and on the strength of that declaration, his clients lost their suit. The majority did not rule that the EJ was annexed to Israel: they ruled that the plaintiffs admitted they thought it now was and therefore had committed a crime of exporting without a permit. That quixotic judgement was one of the foundational texts of precedent for later legal assertions EJ was annexed.Nishidani (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:SPINOUTs

Thoughts on spinning out child articles as follows?

• Geographical impact (I'm not sure what to call this section) containing current sections:

Land seizure mechanisms

Settlement

Settler violence

• Occupation methods (again, I'm terrible with titles) containing current sections:

Military Administration

State of asymmetric war (and all subsections)

Technologies of control (and subsection)

Collective punishment (and all subsections)

• Impact on Palestinians containing current sections:

Initial impact of occupation

Fragmentation (and all subsections)

Loss of cultural property

Agriculture

Resource extraction

Tourism

• Impact on Israelis probably not long enough to require a spin-out, but whether spun out or not, containing sections:

Economic and social benefits and costs of the occupation (and all subsections)

Wider implications

• Israeli critical judgments would be unaffected

Levivich (talk) 07:04, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

We already have a child article on Israeli settler violence. Im working on one for the Permit regime. I dont think any of the others really needs a child article yet. Yes this article is large and needs to be tightened a bit, but for the most part each of these sections already is just a summary of what a full child article would be. nableezy - 07:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is 300k. How would you suggest we reduce it to under 100k per WP:SIZERULE? Or are you saying leave it this size? Levivich (talk) 07:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

100k is readable prose size, not total size. Currently readable prose is 162 kb. nableezy - 07:27, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

So what's your suggestion for cutting the readable prose down to below 100k? My suggestion is above. :-) Levivich (talk) 07:35, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Tighten where possible. I see several places where 5 words might suffice instead of the 20 currently there. My point was that what you propose spinning out would still require summaries here, and what we currently have already is a summary of what a fully fleshed out child article would contain. Its not as if making a child article means that the material vanishes entirely here. Its going to take time though, but its not like theres a due date on this. nableezy - 07:38, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to copyedit this article down by half. I think you can tighten it 10-20% that way (or any similar-sized piece of writing), but not half. I could be wrong, and you're right, there is no deadline. I think the existing "summaries" should be summarized further, and then the child articles could be expanded. It seems like having a "Methods of occupation..." child article, and a "Impact of occupation..." child article are relatively easy and obvious ways to cut this article down by 40% or so. But that's just my two cents. Levivich (talk) 07:50, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I think youd be shocked at how much tighter I can phrase things compared to my loquacious friend Nishidani. nableezy - 07:55, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If the problem were size, then adding 4,000b to an article whose prior length was thought to be not compliant with best practice is definitely not a solution. To the contrary, both a geography section and a timeline only exacerbate the issue. Indeed, by adding that unfocused and generic bulk readily available to anyone with a click, while pleading for a move to remove much of the factual meat of the article, is extremely odd. This is not about the I/P conflict: it is very specifically focused on core structural facts which, to date, have not been registered on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 08:30, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts are that some sections need to be added (geography, timeline, parties, causes), other sections should be condensed and spun off (methods, impact), and when all that is done, the entire thing should be under 100k of prose. I also think that size is the least important, when compared with content. So the adding and copyediting could proceed in tandem, and if that doesn't get it down enough, we can always revisit the spin-off issue? Levivich (talk) 08:38, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The page at 374,006 bytes was cut by roughly 2,000 bytes, with my removal of 1,728 and, User NSH001’s fixing a further 98 =1,826, meaning we would have got it to 372,180 instead of the 375,676 Your additions resulted in. Had that bloat not been added the page would now stand at 368,684, namely 5,322 bytes lighter, effortlessly, at the very outset of the requested revision. So I'd appreciate you reconsidering the additions you made.Nishidani (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The point is, you are asking the article to be downsized while expanding it, which is incomprehensible and an editorial self-conbtradiction. What has been added is already on numerous wiki articles. What you suggest be split off exists only here. Everytime you add expansions that have no factual bearing, and are readily available elsewhere, you are putting more pressure on thinning down the factual content. The process described in sources says the Israeli approach to the WB is one of endless fragmentation of a pre-existing entity, isolating one area/village from another. To approach an article documenting this by isolating each theme from its content in an overview, shearing off sections for inclusion on other pages perfectly mimics that political agenda. I am sure you are unaware of this implicit parallel between what you propose doing, and what Israel appears to do in the West Bank, but the parallel is obvious and troubling. Making so many edits, then reverting them, then changing your mind, is not the way to approach complexity.Nishidani (talk) 12:14, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an overview article, containing the minimum per theme. It can't be split, or have sections spliced out or spun off without destroying the overview'c comprehensiveness. There are numerous articles, also FAs which run over the 100 optimum length, be cause the topic demands it. The first way to address such concerns is by exercising the art of précis, which consists of

(a) Synthesizing and simplifying the each section, without taking out the factual content.

(b) Transferring to existing articles the fuller content intact, leaving the précis here.

I am quite happy to proceed with a substantial précis of this article to reduce the text. Since all of the material is reliably sourced and cogently related to the I/P area, it should be obvious that the logical procedure is to find a home for the full material, section by section, and then leave the synthesis of its import on this page. That is the gist of Levivich's request, if I am not mistaken. To show how this can be done, I took ther ‘legality’ section and, with some expansion and corrections of the related material I found there, pasted it on the International law and Israeli settlements main page, while cutting. down our section 50%. What was the result? Icewhiz elided what I transferred, all of it.

Offtopic in background section, which details the facts on the ground which are then opinied on

That edit is against probably indictable, because his revert ignored the fact he was erasing from the page not only my addition but also the pre-existing material in that article regarding Theodor Meron which I had adapted into my original text since they overlapped. From his edit summary, Theodor Meron’s memorandum on the legality of settlements is off-topic full stop, though it forms the background to all later official Israeli responses. His blind revert of my rewrite obliterated absolutely crucial to the topic which lay there, untroubled, before I touched it.

Clearly, I cannot précis this page if, in moving stuff elsewhere, it is immediately erased. It would mean helping a double erasure, this text being pared to the bone, and then the full record itself made to disappear from sister pages. Effectively that kind of behaviour signals that what is being objected to is not the size nor the quality of the RS but rather the representation of the full factual record on wikipedia. Nishidani (talk) 17:00, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Just because something can be sourced, does not mean it should be stuffed somewhere on Wikipedia without thought of NPOV, DUE, or in the case above - relevance and context. Your edit was reverted since it was entirely off-topic to the section you placed it in - the question of legality of settlements should not have gone into the background section of the legality of settlements article - which develops the legality argument in great detail. As for this page - if this is to remain (and not to be deleted as a POVFORK) - significant portions of UNDUE and out of context opinions and other crud should be removed - I would estimate some 66% of the present article, and content from balancing sources should be added per NPOV. Icewhiz (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The topic is the Israeli occupation of the WB. The sources consist overwhelmingly of specialized monographs on that topic, which is the optimal criterion for composing Wikipedia articles.They are therefore relevant to the context. You made an at sight revert of an edit which incorporated material from this page, and from the said article. Your excuse is flawed. Had you read my edits, you would have seen that I moved up material on Meron already existing on that page, and in blindly reverting, you gutted all mention of Meron, a serious abuse amounting to censorship of the existing historical record. You didn't take time to note I was using material already on that page' which you had no warrant to revert simply because I happened to tweak it. And I placed it right where it belonged: it was stated 'after the war, the Israeli government authorised the construction of military settlements for security purposes.' What was omitted that these authorizations came from Levi Eshkol after he had read Meron's opinion. Eshkol is then mentioned, falsely, only for putatively offering to give back the conquered territories, an untruth which still stands there (and duly corrected on this talk page). As Gorenberg notes, Eshkol read Meron's opinion stating civilian settlements as opposed to short-term military bases, were illegal, and that is thoroughly appropriate to the background. Most of that text is incompetent, and you removed one effort to make it reflect the factual record.

The rest of your remarks consist of asserting a documentation of established facts, for what this is is a sset of facts ordered thematically, should be removed because the facts, which no one has yet challenged, are not consonant with NPOV. That is a 'unique' argument. Nishidani (talk) 21:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If somebody feels that material is off-topic in a given section, and if that person is acting in good faith, they would move the material. They also wouldnt use possibly off-topic material to remove on-topic material as well. That is what a tendentious editor who is editing with a nationalistic motive might do, but not one acting in good faith. You can keep babbling about a POVFORK, but this is emphatically not WP:AFD. If you want to give me a chuckle, go ahead and nominate it. nableezy - 00:13, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

timeline

Im really not a fan of that table, it is disjointed, incomplete, and much of it is of little relevance here. nableezy - 07:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm surprised you think "much" of it is not relevant, but I encourage you to add what you think is missing and remove what you think is irrelevant. I do feel strongly that this article needs a timeline of major events during the occupation to orient the reader, such as when it began, and major changes the administration/governance of the West Bank, major changes in the relations of the involved parties. Surely you agree there have been "major events" that occurred during the last 50 years? Surely a short list of such events would be helpful to the reader? Levivich (talk) 07:40, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there have been major events, but a list of wikilinks plopped down in the middle of an article doesnt help a reader. That short list of events is laid out in the prose of the article, not as a disjointed set of events with no readily apparent connection to what preceded it or what follows it. nableezy - 07:50, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

You understand that "laid out in the prose," when the prose is 180k, is not accessible? And it's at the beginning of the article, not the middle... A timeline or chronology of events is like, an extremely common thing for, say, a book, to have, at the beginning... I think it would be useful here. I'm really surprised by your objection to a timeline, and your preference to have it "laid out in prose" and not in list format. Levivich (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Well is it common for a Wikipedia article to have? Ive been here a while, I dont think Ive seen a table of links like that, outside of a list article. The prose is 162kb, but yes I understand that makes it difficult. I dont see how adding to the total size helps that though. nableezy - 07:54, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Well... yes, it's common for a WP article to have a chronology, either as part of the TOC (because the article is organized chronologically and the section headings include dates... this article is not and does not), or in the infobox (this article has none), or in a separate sidebar box somewhere, or a combination of the above. See, for example, these timelines in featured articles: American_Revolution (TOC and infobox), Occupation of Japan (infobox), Occupation of the Baltic states (TOC and infobox), World_War_II (TOC, infobox, and add'l sidebar), Western Chalukya Empire (TOC, infobox, add'l sdiebar), Macedonia (ancient kingdom) (infobox), British Empire (TOC), History_of_Gibraltar (TOC and sidebar), History of Burnside (TOC), History of Poland (1945–1989) (TOC and sidebar), Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760) (TOC).

If this article were organized chronologically and the TOC provided the chronology at a glance, I would be OK with getting rid of the timeline section. I'd also be OK with putting the timeline in an infobox or sidebar, so it's not a whole "section," similar to how it's done in the articles I linked to above. Levivich (talk) 08:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The chronology deals with a generic and selective handful of incidents that do not bear directly on the specific topic. In the article as it stands you have a specific implicit chronology given per section. Each section technically was written to provide an early marker of an occupational practice, and then to illustrate it by details of development. One could formulate an appropriate chronology by making a timeline of the material already here in terms of a schema listing the dates of all of the military regulations introduced. That is very easy to do, instead of copying and pasting a timeline already known which is not specific to the West Bank topic. But, as I said elsewhere, asserting an article has a major problem with length and then acting to address the problem by adding a significant new mass of (irrelevant) data is procedurally erratic and self-contradictory.Nishidani (talk) 08:37, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I dont have a problem creating a collapsible list in an infobox. I do with putting it as a section in the article. It just looks garrish to me there. nableezy - 15:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree it's ugly as it is now. I will move it to a collapsible infobox later today, we can see how it looks then. Levivich (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not a timeline of the occupation of the West Bank, and therefore as written, inappropriate. A timeline on this topic must deal with major events in the West Bank, some of which I cite in my counter example below. I'm still waiting for a reply as to why you are adding material that has nothing to do with the topic, while asking us to radically cut back the relevant factual content.Nishidani (talk) 21:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I am not asking you or anyone else to do anything. Levivich (talk) 21:40, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say that. You are adding substantial material to an article while asking other editors to radically trim. I.e. seemingly exercising an executive privilege to be above the rule you insist all other editors should follow. I'd like you to explain why you do this.Nishidani (talk) 08:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I have neither asked nor insisted that other editors do anything. Levivich (talk) 15:37, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

To illustrate the futility of a timeline, here is what a skimpy timeline focused on the article's topic matter would look like (and to be comprehensive it would have to be quadrupled, including the dates for the establishment of all Israeli settlement blocs) Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Date	Event(s)
1966	Israeli raid on Samu in retaliation for Syrian backed attack from the West Bank
June 6-8 1967	Jordan shells Israel after Israel attacked Egypt. Israel conquers the West Bank
28 June 1967	Israel its laws and jurisdiction exclusively to the East Jerusalem area of the West Bank
31 July 1967	Military Order Number 59 makes all Jordanian state land Israel state land.
14 September 1967	Internal memorandum on the legality of the settlement project by Theodor Meron
7 June 1967	General Chaim Herzog announces Jordanian law will be retained, except where military needs require changes
January 1968	Israel esxpropriates private Palestinian land for an industrial park at Kalandia and apartment blocs
14 June 1970	Military Order No. 393 requires that any Palestinian industrial plant projects in the WB obtain a prior permit from the Israeli military.
12 April, June 1970	The Hebron and Alon Shvut settlement process initiated
1978	Israel, asserting military reasons, establishes Ariel on private Palestinian property
30 July 1980	The Jerusalem Law passes.
November 1981	Military order no. 947 establishes the Israeli Civil Administration
1987	First Intifada
1988	Jordan cedes most of the West Bank to the State of Palestine
1993	The Oslo I Accord splits the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, into 3 areas, giving Israel exclusive authority in Area C for a five year transitional period. The Ist Intifada formally ends.
1994	Palestinian National Authority established
1995	Oslo II Accord
1997	Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron
2000	Outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada
2002	Operation Defensive Shield; Battle of Jenin; Israeli West Bank barrier construction begins
2004	The International Court of Justice rules that WB Israeli settlements are in breach of international law.
2006	Hamas wins the 2006 legislative elections in the West Bank

territory section

Levivich, I think I understand what you are trying to do with that positioning, but it doesnt work. I think you are trying to introduce the land as a place and then continue, but the sections you put there dont logically fit before the West Bank in 1967 section. The EJ and Area C sections arent discussing the territory so much as how Israel has administered them after the occupation began, and in the case of Area C, after Oslo. Having that before Jordan's occupation in 1967 and the beginning of Israel's doesnt make sense to me. nableezy - 07:31, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I think the article needs a territory/geography section that talks about the land of the West Bank, and the major areas (like EJ and Area C, probably also major cities and settlements). I think a lot of what's there now should be moved to other sections (such as discussion of the term "annexation," which should go to the language section, and discussion of Israel's administration of the area, which should go under the Military Governance section or some other section under what I propose be called "Methods of Israeli occupation" or somesuch). If you want to move those sections back to where they were before (and rename "Territory" back to "Geography")–or make any other edits you feel appropriate–I have no objection. The "Territory"/"Geography" section can be expanded later. Levivich (talk) 07:46, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I get what you were trying to do with a territory section, and I am not opposed to that, but what was put there isnt about the territory or geography. Id prefer if you self-reverted it instead of me doing so as there is a 1RR in place here that I do not want to run afoul of. The initial geography section you included was fine by me, but moving EJ and Area C there was not. nableezy - 07:52, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Levivich, I appreciate you. nableezy - 08:07, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Likewise! Took me a couple tries there... Levivich (talk) 08:08, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The positioning disorders the logical sequencing of the article. The original two sections on language and media were placed at the head for a simple reason. Since this is an overview of a controversial series of events whose reportage in sources is itself subject to wide interrogation, the reader needs an indication of the problem in sourcing the article itself.Nishidani (talk) 12:29, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Sidebars

I put the Geography and Timeline sections into sidebars. I think it's far better than it was before. The content could use editing, as could the layout; I'm not very good with colors and such. Please have at it. PS: If anyone doesn't like how I've described or grouped events in the timeline, please just edit it rather than telling me about it here. Thank you. Levivich (talk) 01:02, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I moved it up below the first image. We could probably use an infobox tbh. nableezy - 01:11, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, with maps, collapsible sections with little background info blurbs (geography, demographics, parties), and the timeline. Levivich (talk) 01:50, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

Thoughts on what kind of infobox, and what sections it should have? My thoughts:

Jordanian annexation of the West Bank uses template:infobox former country; there are some parts I like, but it doesn't seem like an exact match

Template:infobox military conflict, similarly, has some parts I like, but other parts that are inapplicable

Template:infobox 2011–2012 Saudi Arabian protests also has some parts I like, other parts that are inapplicable

I'm not finding anything exactly on point; perhaps we need something entirely new, a template:military occupation? Levivich (talk) 15:59, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

To revive this conversation from last month: what do people think about adding Template:infobox civil conflict and making the existing timeline and geography sidebars into collapsable parts of that infobox? Levivich (talk) 20:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Second call to see if anyone objects to my adding Template:infobox civil conflict to this article. (I don't want to spend the time if the addition will be reverted.) Thanks. Levivich? ! 22:53, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

This is not a civil conflict, but a military one (albeit one sided). The description of that infobox specifically says to not use it for military conflicts. If you think it can be made to fit, you could make a mock-up of it here so that we can see what you intend. Zero^talk 23:45, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Template:infobox military conflict is better? ^Leviv_ich? ! 00:08, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Neither really fits - the military one is even a worse fit. Some sort of government/administration infobox might be appropriate - but if there isn't an appropriate infobox for an occupation - we shouldn't force one that doesn't fit into the article. Icewhiz (talk) 09:09, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

"Historical background"

To be related to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank on Wikipedia, reliable sources must make an explicit connection between topics. Something is not "historical background" just because a Wikipedia editor says so. Absolutely nothing in the section as created by User:Bellezzasolo is even a little bit related to the topic of this article. Do you know how many times this source even mentions the Israeli occupation? Zero. How many times it even mentions anything post 1948, much less 1967? Zero. This mentions the West Bank how many times? Zero. The Israeli occupation? Zero. You cant just put something in as background because you think it is relevant. The sources have to make it relevant. Otherwise it is WP:OR by WP:SYNTH. nableezy - 19:39, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Finding RSes making tue connection between earlier Zionist history and post-1967 Zionist rule, or occupation, is clearly fairly easy.Icewhiz (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Nableezy: It would be difficult for a source talking about the Old Yishuv to talk about occupation, given that came later. It relates to Jewish communities, including in Hebron. The second source talks about Jerusalem, yes. Guess what? The lead sentence states The Israeli occupation of the West Bank began on 7 June 1967 when Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. These sources relate to Jewish historical connection to the West Bank, which is an aspect of the current conflict. If it really is out of scope to have some background of Jewish history in the area, then that's not producing a well-rounded article. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:59, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

This article is written according to what scholarship says, not what ragsheets crunched out by the usual monkey organ grinders (campus.org, ija, Arutz Sheva, none of which have any status as RS. If that is where you get your facts, then it is pointless even tweaking this page.Nishidani (talk) 22:50, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Another source ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 20:35, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

References

How many Jews lived in the area before 1967 (and before 1948) is obviously relevant information (was it a majority? a minority? even split?). It also is relevant to establish a baseline for the population changes in Israeli settlements in the West Bank over the last century (growth? decline? how fast?). Zionism is obviously relevant to Jewish settlements in the West Bank; I don't even need to explain that, much less to people as knowledgable as the editors on this page. "Just because a truth is inconvenient doesn't mean we can delete it..." as the saying goes. Also, "no rush", editors should be given time to work the article. I'm not spinning off to give editors time to precis; why not give Bellezzasolo some time to finish the section, and when it's done, just copyedit the prose if it needs work or rephrasing. Rather than just deleting it altogether. Or, alternatively, we can all use up our 1RR and then we'll be back here discussing anyway. Happy New Year everyone! :-) Levivich (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

AFAIK, the answer the the first question is easy: virtually no Jews lived in the West Bank between 1948 and 1967 (not counting the Samaritans in Nablus.) Before 1948 there were some Jews living in Hebron (never more than a few hundred), and in East Jerusalem. I don't know of any other places on the West Bank that there were Jews on living on the West Bank in modern, historical time. (I have checked the 1596 tax records, the 1870 data, the 1922 and 1931 census, the 1945 and 1961 data.) Also: the deleted section was written in the true spirit of "navel gazing" ...everything from the Jewish perspective. (What about the Christian perspective? There are villages on the West Bank which have had Christian community dating back to the Byzantine era.) But all of this belongs to the general history of the place: we really don't need it in an article which is already bordering on being too long (IMO), Huldra (talk) 21:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

@Huldra: re "Navel Gazing" TGS edit conflicted with this version which started adding significance to other faiths. It's tagged with {{under construction}} for a reason. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:50, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Now, starting a User:Bellezzasolo/sandbox is obviously much better that trying to insert that lump of text directly into the article. Alas, if we are trying to get a reasonable article about which faiths have lived on the West Bank for the last 2000 years, I am afraid we will double the size of this article. IOW: that is for a separate article. (Also, User:Bellezzasolo: what on earth do the 1838 Druze attack on Safed have to do with the West Bank??? The Druze are virtually totally absent from the history of the West Bank, AFAIK), Huldra (talk) 22:10, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

@TheGracefulSlick: I think it's been well sourced here that the edits are discussing the topic. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:36, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

First, Levivich. You made strong exceptions to the length of the page. I started to thin it, and, hello, you added 4,000 bytes, contradicting the principle you set forth. Bellezzasolo cut and pasted a 4,000 byte blob of irrelevances made of books that do not, unlike all sources so far, focus on the occupation,hence WP:SYNTH and WP:OR violations, and you immediately applaud the additions. You are therefore using double standards. Material about Palestinians must be cut back radically to reduce page length. But, it's okay for the page length to remain as long as the size you objected to, as long as we bulk it out with Zionist stories. You've contradicted your principle twice, and therefore you've declared your hand. Your objection is not at the length, but to the content.Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Nableezy is correct. All the matter here is sourced to books and articles addressing the occupation. Unless you can come up with RS that thematize the occupation of the West Bank and introduce the usual ideological panoply of justifications, then this is patently original research.Nishidani (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

One thing I admire about Nishidani is how they never make an ad hominem attack, always discussing strictly the content of edits, never speculating as to the motivations of editors. @Huldra: don't you think that information is relevant to include in this article? You know, "there were no Jews before 1967, now there are this many Jews". That is not relevant to the occupation? @TheGracefulSlick: Zionism is not relevant to the occupation of the West Bank by Israel? I imagine this can't be what you mean by your edit summary. Can you explain–or can anyone explain–why it is not relevant to talk about how Jews got to the West Bank, in an article about the Israeli occupation of the West Bank? Am I the only person who sees a connection between Zionism, Israel, and the occupation of the West Bank? Levivich (talk) 21:49, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Your remarks here have no credibility unless you can give a logical ground for asserting, the article is too long, but that you approve of blobs of extra material, 8,000 bytes counting what you and Bellezzasolo added, adding to what you think is excess length. Answer the question.Nishidani (talk) 22:36, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Nishi my friend, you say "answer the question," but I re-read your comments in this thread, and not one sentence you wrote ends in a question mark. What is the question? Levivich (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nishidani: If Israeli ties to the West Bank are out of scope of this article, that's highly symptomatic of a POVFUNNEL. There's a lot of history to this conflict, an article this long can afford a section on History. It's far more helpful to the reader than cutting out a similar amount of material. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:02, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

You are citing books you are unfamiliar with. You cite Laqueur. If you introduce that book, then there is a mass of documentation in it destroying your comically jejune attempt at writing a history of Zionism. I could easuily tweak anything you cite from that by adding his hostility to the settlement project, his contempt for the centrality of Jerusalem, his highlighting the rift between Ashkenazi migrants and Sephardic locals between whom no love was lost,, his belief that post 1967 led Israel down to an extremely dangerous path, etc.etc.etc. That goes for a few other books in that otherwise useless list cited for a snippet without any understanding of the severe criticisms those few books make of post 1967 expansionist Zionism. You don't appear to have an inkling of what you are digging yourself into, and certainly should not make these puerile sketches of what little you know in a carefully written article. Go to your sandbox, please. Here, this is just soporific sandman sprinklings of the usual cartoonishj bulldust. Nishidani (talk) 22:45, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I'm citing an author who talks about the Balfour declaration being integrated into the legal framework of the mandate and mentions the Hebron Massacre. For the section I'm writing, his thoughts on the post-1967 situation have less significance than a chocolate teapot. I haven't delved into the events following the Six Day War. "What you are digging yourself into"? Seriously? This article already makes an abundance of citations to various New Historians detailing their various criticisms of the occupation. ANd you think I'm digging a hole by citing a couple of them for purely factual matters? Please, give your incessant condescension a rest. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 22:58, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

And when the author goes on to decry the occupation, you don't cite that as well? Use Laqueur, and you'll open up a can of worms, because it provides a warrant for everything hostile he says about the occupation of the West Bank. It's not hard to understand that is it? I suppose I should write up a section about Arthur Ruppin, the architect of Zionist settlement who elaborated on his ideas after personally meeting the key Nazi theorist re Jews in 1936. Want that in too? You have absolutely no idea of how much negative information re Zionism I have resolutely left out of this page, because it is irrelevant to the topic- what the Israeli occupation policies are, and do post 1967 in the West Bank. I could jam in a big section (already written) on religion, citing all the nasty details re restrictions on Christians and Muslims in the West Bank. Want that as well? keep making silly expansions, and you invite that kind of thing. Drop it.Nishidani (talk) 23:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

a big section (already written) on religion, citing all the nasty details re restrictions on Christians and Muslims in the West Bank seems relevant, so yes please. nableezy - 01:23, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

• If there indeed is a connection between Zionism and the West Bank—and I would argue there is—its relevance would be in how it justifies illegally occupying the territory. However, the “historical background” I reverted failed to connect to the subject at hand and hence only served to bloat the article. Editors earlier argued that the article is too bulky; how did hastily adding content that did not enhance the readers’ knowledge of this specific topic help address that issue?TheGracefulSlick (talk) 22:19, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

As I wrote in my reversion edit summary, I believe when an editor uses {in use} and {under construction}, we should respect that, and give the editor an opportunity to finish working before making further changes to their work. Rather than reverting, we could have simply waited, allowed the editor to finish, and then made whatever edits we felt necessary to connect to the subject at hand. As for "bulky," it's not helpful to try and turn my concerns about the 150k+ of prose in this article into some sort of rule that we can only delete and never add. Indeed, the entire reason this article needs to be reduced is because it is missing so much that still needs to be added, such as a background section. Also, my feelings about length in no way justifies reverting Bellezzasolo's or any other editor's additions (including my own). I have respected the request that was made of me a month or so ago to not attempt to spin out parts of the article until other editors have had a chance to reduce its prose size through copyediting. I continue to respect that request; indeed, there is no rush. I don't see why others can't extend the same patience to Bellezzasolo today. Levivich (talk) 23:16, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Levivich, the material as sourced is SYNTH. Regardless of whether or not an in-use tag is used, the material added is a violation of our content policies. This article isnt about Jerusalem, it is about the occupation of a portion of that city, along with the occupation of the rest of the West Bank. Just saying oh this talks about Jerusalem so anything that discusses Jerusalem is relevant is patently silly. An encyclopedia article is not the place for somebody to introduce their own theories, something is relevant if and only if the sources make them relevant. And what was added emphatically was not relevant because the sources cited said nothing about the topic of this article. nableezy - 01:18, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Bellazzasolo, are you seriously suggesting an op-ed in Arutz Sheva arguing that the West Bank should be annexed makes a history of Zionism relevant to this article? Well then, I think you proved my point. These sources relate to Jewish historical connection to the West Bank, which is an aspect of the current conflict. Well then, thank you for making clear the political point in that POV push. That has literally nothing to do with the occupation of the West Bank besides being a settler talking point for why the West Bank should be annexed. But as it relates to the actual occupation, nada, zilch, zero. You want to argue that Israel should posses the West Bank because of some Jewish connection? Thats cool I guess, but this article is emphatically not the place for that effort. nableezy - 01:23, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

@Nableezy: I'm making no such argument (that Israel should posess the West Bank). There's a reason I didn't throw in Arutz Sheva sources to the content of my edits (although you conveniently skirt around the book by Michael Feige, hardly a pro-settler author). POV sources are fine for demonstrating that, to one side of the conflict, this issue is relevant - ATTRIBUTEPOV. It explains why national-religious settlers are so adamant about living where they do - this isn't just some other land that's been won in a conflict and a merely territorial gain. Why doesn't Sinai matter in the same way? FYI, Nishidani, the whole reason for making live edits rather than quietly writing Kilobytes and Kilobytes in a sandbox was because there's another side with history in this land. A history that I don't know much about, but you probably do. I was anticipating that, rather than just blindly reverting anything you don't like, you can add another point of view. My problems with this article in its current state are precisely because it was developed quietly in a sandbox. PS. I could jam in a big section (already written)... Want that as well? keep making silly expansions, and you invite that kind of thing. Drop it. smacks of a BATTLEGROUND attitude. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:08, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, You and Zero0000 really need to stop going on about a POV push. I've been telling you since days after this article appeared that it was highly POV, and several other editors have raised the same concern. SOFIXIT was the reply. Now I have access to numerous books on the matter, I started doing so. Constructively, rather than the carte blanche removal that seems to be the norm. Sure, my edits my look POV in isolation. This is a massive POV article. I prefer to neutralise my acids with alkalis, rather than trying to dilute it into oblivion. I fully expect diffusion (copyediting) to then sort out the imbalance. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:58, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I dont believe that was the response. Your position that the article is "highly POV" is based on nothing. The only point you have raised, here or at Talk:West Bank, was the use of the word "catastrophe" when it was clearly being an attributed view of the Palestinians and a translation to nakba. I remedied that by placing quotes around it, making explicit what was obviously implicit. But the rest of your points I have not seen any actual substance to. And you essentially admit that the background section you wrote is "highly POV" by saying you you neutralise acids with alkalis. The article isnt POV just because you say it is. And none of that allows for WP:OR by WP:SYNTH. nableezy - 00:40, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

(Michael Feige's book) 'explains why national-religious settlers are so adamant about living where they do - this isn't just some other land that's been won in a conflict and a merely territorial gain.'

If you want Zionist ideological motivations, write an article on it. There are many Israeli-diaspora analyses of the phenomenon, and were one to start writing about Zionism and the West Bank, you'd have to delicately balance the account showing that among very high profile Zionist scholars, the religious-nationalist settlements, and the whole post-1967 colonial adventure is deplored. There is not just as you tried to get over,one Zionist perspective or historical account. Here's a few bits from the very book by Walter Laqueur which you quoted a snippet of:

The Arab Jewish conflict was inevitable, given the fact that Zionist wanted to build more than a cultural centre in Palestine. Nor is it certain that a cultural centre would not have encountered resistance. Zionism, the transplantation of hundreds of thousands of Jews, was bound to effect a radical change in Palestine, as a result of which the Palestinian Arabs were bound to suffer. It was not the Arab fault that the Jews were persecuted in Europe, that they had awakened to the fact that they wanted agains to be a nation and therfore needed a state in a country in which they had lived two thousand years before. pp.595-6

I.e. in a Zionist background sketch you would have to add something like.'Zionism's intention to shift hundreds of thousands of Jews into Palestine made it inevitable that Palestinians would suffer.'(sfnLaqueur2003pp=595-596) (dozens of RS with details of the full awareness that the dispossession was part of early Zionists' awareness are available).

Over the past thirty years a belief has grained ground among the right-wing that the entire historical Palestine is “ ours by divine right.” This has resulted, among other things, in the mushrooming of settlements in areas of the West Bank and Gaza that have been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War in 1967. Most of them do not make sense either economically or militarily, and defending and guarding them ties down a considerable part of Israel’s army. They are also a major obstacle on the road to some form of poeaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. The pseudo-religious mysticism that rationalizes their existence would have been wholly alien to early generations of Zionist thinkers who, while giving all due deference to traditional religious practices, were profoundly secular in outlook and would have regarded with abvhorrence the intrusion of religion into politics. If the lack of governmental planning in advance of the “ingathering of the exiles” in the 1950s was a serious mistake, the failure of the State of Israel in those years to adopt a written constitution for a division between religion and state was another.

This new manifestation of right-wing nationalism is not, as Herzl’s Zionism had been, a product of the Enlightenment; it is not connected with the struggle for political liberty and a free society. It fears alien influences, is antagonistic to strangers, and does not count individual freedom among its primary concerns. As one of the ideologies of this new creed put it, “This Zionism does not seek to solve the problem of the Jews by setting up a Jewish state, but is an instrument in the hands of ther Almighty which prepared the people of Israel for their Redemption.” Pre-state Zionism had not been based on religious zealotry and chauvinism. And even the religious Zionism of that era had stressed the international, universal message of Torah and redemption, rather than national egotism.To the Revisionist Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky, a nationalist in the liberal hineteenth-century mold, the anti-Western, isolationist character of today’s right wing Zionism would have been incomprehensible and repugnant. What caused such changes to the character of post-independent Zionism? Probably it was the annus mirabilis of 1967, which culminated in a nationwide abandonment of a sense of reality regarding the newly acquired land. The rise of worldwide fundamentalism might also have played a part, as well as a decline in the quality of national leadership. Pre-state Zionism had attracted formidable intellects and visionary leaders. In recent decades there has been a notable decline in the quality of national leadership.'pp.xvii-xviii

As I said, there's a motherlode of Zionist criticism hostile to the settlement project. What you did was to give the official settler line. Feige does not expound Zionist reasons for settlement, but the way settlers radically reinterpreted Zionism to fit their own religious ideas, creating a completely different thing or inversion of foundational Zionism, and therefore whose Zionism are you describing? In any case, even Feige wouldn't help prettify the picture, use him and editors would elicit a citation like this from the same source:

The interaction between the youth of the hills and the Palestinians is radically different from that of their parents, and, accordingly their attitudes towards their hostile neighbours differ. Unlike their parents, who arrived not knowing what to expect, the young settlers were born into a situation of conflict and hold neither hope nor interest in good relations with the Arabs. For them, the Palestinians are those who murdered their friends and would annihilate them, given the chance. . . .The young hikers displayed hostility whenever they encounter signs of an Arab presence, even though the Arabs present were Israeli citizens. They took a large flag everywhere to show their symbolic appropriation of the place, displaying that, for them, the entire land was a contested frontier and a bat5tle-ground . .Arabs are not allowed near the new outposts, . . . Their militant posture is a constant threat to the local Palestinians, and therefore the proliferation of the outposts marks vast areas into which Palestinian residential areas cannot expand.

It strikes me as evident that you do not realize the implications of trying to write a small section on an extremely complex topic like Zionism. It can't be done, unless, as you appear to do, you follow the comic book version of the 30 seconds read: Zionism arose out of two millennia of relentless persecution of Jews who were expelled by Titus from their homeland in 70 CE and their lineal descendants went back home, found blow-in Arabs (fresh from Saudi Arabia a mere 1,300 years ago who constituted 90% of the population and owned 94% of the land and housing) to be as murderous and anti-Semitic as Westerners. They fought to found their state against a hostile horde of millions of Arabs (who connived with Hitler) and now live in a modern technological superstate subject to terrorist threats, a bastion of democracy and a forward defense line against Islamic barbarity. Is that it, i.e. more or less what hundreds of editors have tried to put over in a thousand articles, citing Arutz Sheva and official sources?Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

You confuse trying to write a small section with having written a small section {{under construction}}. I was envisaging a somewhat more sizable, yet concise, section covering historical background. I wasn't touching on post-1967 since that would duplicate content elsewhere in the article. I was envisaging essentially: ancient Jewish homeland, small remnant of that community remains. Arabs at some point settle in the region (I'm not sure of the date, so was going to do some research, but quite possibly 1300 years). The Jewish community of Hebron and East Jerusalem are made refugees by pogroms and conflict respectively. Jerusalem holy to all three faiths, holy sites also in the West Bank. That sort of thing. Historical information that sets the stage for the conflict and explains where people are coming from. Opinions on the current situation don't fit in such a section. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:51, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

This article is not West Bank. It is not Jerusalem. It is not East Jerusalem. Background of the occupation itself is relevant. How it came to be, how the legal positions have evolved over time, sure that is all relevant background. ancient Jewish homeland, small remnant of that community remains. Arabs at some point settle in the region (I'm not sure of the date, so was going to do some research, but quite possibly 1300 years). The Jewish community of Hebron and East Jerusalem are made refugees by pogroms and conflict respectively. Jerusalem holy to all three faiths, holy sites also in the West Bank. None of that is relevant background, even if one were to suppose your background section was even remotely neutral. nableezy - 00:40, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Let me take that apart by rewriting it.

Jews have been in diaspora, outside Palestine, since at least the Babylonian exile suffered by the Judean elite. The major concentration grew in Palestine, large parts of which were defined in their sacred scriptures as land given over for their exclusive use by God. Here they had a majority concentrated in Judea for some centuries, but an Arab presence is attested as early as the Achaemenid Empire (6 century CE). The majority of Jews already lived outside Palestine throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East by the time of the Jewish wars with the Roman Empire. The area of Samaria was dominated by Samaritans, whose definition as descendants of the Israelitic population is subject to dispute in rabbinical sources. A certain continuity in Jewish residence persisted despite Roman, Christian and Arab dominance, so that by the time of Benjamin Tudela at least two families are attested in Jerusalem. Suleimon the Magnificent opened the doors to Jewish immigration after they were expelled, together with Muslims, from Spain, and were concentrated in Hebron, Tiberias and Jerusalem. With the rise of European geopolitical interests in the area, projects to repopulate the small Jewish population were advanced. With the rise in frequency of pogroms in the Russian Empire a wave of aliyah immigration arose which, together with the adoption of Theodor Herzl’s outline of a Zionist community, in response to European antisemitism, augmented the Jewish proportion of the population so that, by late Ottoman times Jews came to constitute 3% of the population, with Christians at 9% Christian and Muslims at 86-87%

Under the British Mandate, following the Balfour Declaration, greater impetus took place for Jewish immigration. This sparked off strong discontent among the Arabic-speaking Muslim and Christian majority, with outbreaks of violence as the two struggled over their rights to a homeland. Tensions also arose in the yishuv between the new European Ashkenazi communities and the more traditional Sephardic groups, who were culturally at home in an Arabic-spealing milieu In 1929, several pogroms took place ion Hebron and Safed, leading to the temporally closure of those towns to Jews. In 1848, Jerusalem saw the eviction of 30,.000 Arabs from its western suburbs, and East Jerusalem 1,500 Jews from the Old City.

Etc.Nishidani (talk) 10:08, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

This article, as pointed out by numerous editors, has a massive POV problem. Bellezzasolo's efforts to introduce balance is a positive development - one that possibly will bring this article out of the anti-occupation WP:ESSAY turf it is in now, into a Wikipedia article adhering to NPOV. The Arab/Israeli conflict - and in particular the conflict around the West Bank - most definitely can be summarized into a few paragraphs. Icewhiz (talk) 10:16, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Numerous editors likewise can't see the 'massive POV problem', perhaps because they note that it is essentially a thematic list, very succinct, of how an occupation, this one by Israel, functions. You and a few others appear to read it in terms of image damage. History is not politics: it is getting the factual record straight. Zionism is a classic form of ideology of the nationalist variety, and rewrites the 'facts' selectively and evocatively, in order to fit a narrative of self-justification and ethnic vindication. To get editors to prioritize their understanding by consulting the superb scholarly documentation, most of it Israeli and diasporic, of how the administrative machine works, is difficult because many are wholly unfamiliar with the facts, or, rather, they are familiar with the ideological fictions, and not the hard facts, sociological, historical and cultural, which are systematically elided from the Zionist narrative as incompatible with the story of righteousness. Note that no opposing editor is contesting the factual record: they are all complaining just that the record is not the happy one you get in nursery tales. Twice Bellezzasolo showed they had no inkling of basic facts, but some inkling of the ideological position (see above on Israel's putative offer to return the West Bank; his unfamiliarity with the history of an Arab presence in Palestine; his citation of a laughable skewed ragsheet called Arutz Sheva, which even a minimum competence would have suggested cannot be used for a serious historical overview. It doesn't augur well when one appears to jump into an argument without a grasp of fundamentals all should know. A bit like doing textual criticism of Finnegans Wake without mastering the ABC.)Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I can illustrate the point better by taking Bellezzasolo's desire to represent the settlers' outlook. We don't only have Feige, now that Tamara Neuman's Settling Hebron: Jewish Fundamentalism in a Palestinian City, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018 isbn 978-0-812-24995-8 is out, a study in the 'ethnography of political violence.'

Neuman opens her account recalling the remarks being made by a Jewish Hebronite informant as they wandered around the occupied sector of settlement.

As we talked before the monumental structure, she explained that this was the burial site of Judaism's most important matriarchs and patriarchs, and that few nations exist today know exactly where their ancestors lie. It was in this sense, she continued, that the Jewish people were distinct. Approaching the massive outer walls of this seventh-century site, I took in the vast military panorama encircling the area-observations towers, camouflage netting, barbed wire, steel fencing, metal detectors, and checkpoints. Two towering square minarets, rising up from the diagonal corners of the site's rectangular outer wall, stood as staunch witnesses to the site's Islamic character. As I further observed the scene, Rivka recounted the suggestion by medieval Jewish philosophers that the area stood at the entrance to the Garden of Eden. The dissonance of seeing this heavily militarized zone while hearing her claim that were standing before Eden remains etched in my mind to this day. Her projection of a biblical utopia upon an elaborate latticework of militarism was telling. Realities, to be sure, can be parsed in myriad ways, but it seemed impossible not to notice the deadening effects of the many soldiers deployed throughout a Palestinian urban area. . . It might seem easy to dismiss Rivka's assertions as an illusion. . . Yet in remaking and residing in sacred places such as these, Jewish settlers establish a putative sense of the real, which arises from the very materiality of the scene. Being able to see in this particular way, to look beyond the presence of actual Palestinian lives and be invested in Jewish origins alone, comes from the ability to bound off discordant elements of an ideological vision as " alien " or as falling outside the arena of concern. Yet Rivka was confronted by an array of conditions that might in other circumstances have disrupted her religious vision. there was no mistaking, for instance, the crumbling state of many uninhabited Palestinian buildings that had fallen into disrepair or the tension palpable in this volatile and conflict-ridden zone. Rivka's principal focus, however, was on reclaimed Jewish spaces and origins. Her vision was enmeshed in a biblical sense of place and shaped by a mystically rooted experience of self quite unknown in other times and contexts of Jewish observance.' pp.1-2.

What too many I/P editors have been doing for more than a decade is precisely this, arguing that, against the best scholarship, we too should take on the ability of

Being able to see in this particular way, to look beyond the presence of actual Palestinian lives and be invested in Jewish origins alone, comes from the ability to bound off discordant elements of an ideological vision as " alien "! or as falling outside the arena of concern.

Such an advocacy of prioritizing what is a partisan ideological mode of evaluating the objective reality of an historical situation, by systematic elisions of the Palestinian landscape, runs against the core principles of Wikipedia, and against what any student learns at university level in Israel. That goes for the proposed historical background, which has been proposed clearly to vindicate a peculiar rhetorical misty-eyed religious account of Zionism, by eliding both the factual complexities and the other possible narratives of that same background.Nishidani (talk) 11:34, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

A significant fraction (depends of course how you count - demographic numbers and boundaries being rather fluid for Jews and Palestinians - but from 15% to 25%) of the population living under the Israeli occupation are Jewish - so certainly the affects of the occupation on the Jewish population are relevant as well. As you know, scholarship espousing different viewpoints on the West Bank is readily available - we shouldn't restrict ourselves to one POV slant.Icewhiz (talk) 11:48, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Some of that is covered. The effect of the occupation on the IDF, the effect of cheaper housing on Jewish influxes into the West Bank. The effect of subsidies on the growth of Jewish settlements, etc.etc. Since in international law, all settlement activity is illegal/ criminal, what you are saying is that if someone usurps illegally another people's land and settles it with relatives and like-minded people, to achieve NPOV balance, we should hear a lot about how upset the thief is when some of his group suffer retaliatory attacks from the dispossessed original owners, and that it is unfair just to document the nature of the theft, and its victims. 'What chutzpah,' he said. 'I stole the dumb bastard's wallet, and he hit back at me'.Nishidani (talk) 20:33, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Please note that settlers are BLPs, and BLP policy applies. Furthermore - the vast majority of them were born in the West Bank, and are not responsible in any way for their parents or grandparents decisions. Icewhiz (talk) 08:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Please consult WP:BLP and inform the page where, rather than, as it does, outline policy regarding individual persons and their right to privacy, it mentions whole groups - the middle class, an elite, settlers, a bureaucracy, football fans of one team or another. Unless you can demonstrate that the policy extends to the generic naming of any social group or class, your remark is erratic.Nishidani (talk) 11:43, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

It is completely absurd to apply BLP to a group of hundreds of thousands of people. See WP:BLPGROUP. Zero^talk 11:59, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Proposed RfC re: background section

I propose starting an RfC with this question: Should Israeli occupation of the West Bank have a "Background" section summarizing events in the West Bank before 1967? I'm not sure if the wording is the best. Thoughts? Thank you in advance. Levivich (talk) 22:13, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

This will be a waste of time, unless you have a ready made "Background" section to point to. Obviously, User:Bellezzasolo/sandbox needs a lot of work (I am being very diplomatic here), Huldra (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Above comment is the opposite of "diplomatic", which is defined as ...exercising tact or courtesy; using discussion to avoid hard feelings, fights or arguments (bold added) Levivich (talk) 22:31, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

What would be a waste of time is for an editor to draft something in a sandbox for inclusion, if other editors feel that no such section should exist at all and will revert its addition. If everyone is in agreement that a background section is due, then I agree there is no need for this RfC, and we could workshop a sandbox instead. My understanding is that not everyone is in agreement that a background section is appropriate, per the months-long discussions above. Levivich (talk) 22:40, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

My 2 cents: If we are going to have a RfC, we need to know what it is about. And as long as there is no existing "Background" section ready, then we don't. Huldra (talk) 22:43, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Of course background is relevant to every article on a historical topic, but this proposed RfC looks too much like an attempt to justify Bellezzasolo's version of background. I reverted Bellezzasolo's first instalment because it was a phoney "history" in which the vast majority of the population played no part other than attacking Jews. This is 1000% unacceptable and will remain so. If someone wants to write something about the ideological motivations of the occupation, based on proper sources and not crap like settler news outlets, that would be worth considering. Zero^talk 00:23, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Whether or not there should be a background section is very much not the same question as if what Bellazzasolo inserted as background. nableezy - 00:40, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Too soon without a concrete suggestion. The question is if @Bellazzasolo: thinks his version is past the "under construction" phase and fit for a rfC suggestion? Icewhiz (talk) 10:17, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

4 excisions

• (1) Off topic in section, and POV problems regardless given lack of context

Why is it off-topic, and where is the POV problem?

• (2) Hypothetical study from 1978 - stick to the facts

Then you are not familiar with the book, which has massive statistical data. The World Bank sourcesd used elsewhere do the same thing, state the facts, and draw conclusions. It is is normal, and you cannot cancel a source because it also contains conclusions

• (3) misrepresentation of source - doesn't say Israel closed these

Israel closed down the British and Arab commercial banks operating in the territories, without setting up a successful alternative Israeli credit system to replace them.

Clarify precisely where the source is misrepresented by citing the relevant passage.

• (4) SYNTH.

Why is this passage an example of WP.SYNTH? Nishidani (talk) 12:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Blanket reversions are not collaborative, and particularly are egregious when they re-introduce serious misrepresentations. Specifically -

(1) Off topic in section, and POV problems regardless given lack of context - Events in 1987-1993 and in 2000-2005 - are clearly off-topic in a section on 1967. Furthermore, specifying Israel shot at schools without context (e.g. said schools being used for militant activity during an armed military conflict - the Second Intifada) - is a NPOV issue.

So one has but one option, move it to an appropriate section. I see that like several other sections missing, I left out on specifically on the effect of Israeli policies on Palestinian schooling. All you needed to do was to create that section and put the information there. You didn't, preferring to make the relevant data disappear down the memory hole. Dealt with here, which is what a responsible editor respecting strong data should have done. I will have to write up that section, however, since there is a vast amount of material on the occupation's impact on schooling (such as frequent use of tear gas fired into them during study hours.etc.etc.Nishidani (talk) 13:54, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

When one sees off-topic information - one removes it. Furthermore, presenting " In the first two years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, 100 schools were fired on by the IDF, some were bombed and others occupied as military outposts." under "Impact on education" is a NPOV issue. The armed military conflict in Intifada2 - in which said schools were used by Palestinian authority militants - is omitted. If one is to include shots fired at schools - then one must include shots fired from within said schools at civilians and soldiers. Icewhiz (talk) 14:04, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

'When one sees. The grammar here suggests objectivity and secondly, one removes it implies,a standard routine duty, as much as a description of what one does. For a long time I have noted numerous edit summaries cancelling well-sourced material with an obscure flagwaving pretext, such as WP:SYNTH]], WP:OR,'off-topic' etc.etc. where the call is purely subjective, or wikilawyering from dislike. As to the second point, I follow sources. It is an endless source of grief to me, and I presume many others, that sources as often as not do not give as much material as one personally knows about. I don't try to invent things to balance things out. I stick to what the source says, as we are obliged to. Are you saying Israel never fires on schools, ambulances, hospitals and the like unless enemy fire is detected first from that area? A thousands sources will tell you that is patently untrue.Nishidani (talk) 16:36, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I never claimed every school was a militant/rocket base or every ambulance was an explosive and/or militant taxi ([1][2][3]). However, it is quite obvious that these incidents were documented and covered. When one chooses to mention solely fire towards schools - one should also mention the background behind this. Frankly - I would omit this all together, as these episodes are related to specific armed conflicts (e.g. Intifada2) and not to the occupation as a period. Icewhiz (talk) 17:03, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Come off it. You really want to put it over that the Intifadas lit. 'shaking off the occupationj' are not related to the occupation? Nishidani (talk) 17:29, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

(2)Hypothetical study from 1978 - stick to the facts -The use of this dated and highly POV source (an 1978 essay on how to construct an independent and viable Palestine economically) is problematic in general. However, what was removed was not the data point from the book - but rather a hypothetical assertion on the 1967 rate of growth being important for self-reliance circa 1978.

My bet is that you haven't read the book (for it is not an essay). How do you know it is a POV source (and what does that mean? All sources have a POV, reliability is established by the quality of the authors, the imprint and reception) It was a collaborative study between an Israeli and a Palestinian economic situation of the Palestinian territories, widely cited in the academic literature. The text you removed runs:

This rate of growth was indispensable if the post-war West Bank were to achieve economic self-reliance. However, the loss of East Jerusalem cut off potential gains from tourism

That is not an hypothesis. It is a statement of (a) a condition sine qua non you'll find in any economic textbook together with (b) a statement of fact, the loss of East Jerusalem did cut off an important source of income for the West Bank economy, as documented elsewhere in the article.Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

It is a hypothesis in relation to a non-existent independent West Bank economy - which was part of the British mandate, then annexed to Jordan (along side of Jerusalem), and finally occupied by Israel. An independent West bank economy did not exist prior (or after) 1967. The premise of the book is to study the viability of an independent Palestine - which is great (and the 1978 book is groundbreaking in being a very early bi-national effort to study such a proposal) - but hypothetical (as well as being very dated). Icewhiz (talk) 14:48, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Nope. Stating a precondition - unless you are born you cannot cry or breathe- is not an hypothesis. This is elementary logic.Nishidani (talk) 16:27, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

(3)misrepresentation of source - doesn't say Israel closed these - sorry fellow - I don't have to clarify your misuse of the source. I read the source. Pages 112-113 do not say that Israel closed said banks (or that Israel attempted to setup a "successful alternative Israeli credit system"). This is a serious misrepresentation of the source - and you should self-revert. You can use the source to say that Arab and British banks were closed - not that Israel closed them. I will note that the source itself is also possibly incorrect (or perhaps just unclear - as it doesn't say all) in that (if my recollection is correct) some of these actually remained open in the West Bank (while many did close) - but that's besides the point (for that - I would have to present a source).

That is a palmary example of bad-faith editing, using a verbal pretext to remove a passage which, if tweaked minutely, would have retained the content. rather than 'disappearing' it.

Source

The financial linkages are more difficult to observe. British and Arab commerical banks operating in the territories before 1967 were closed just after Israeli rule was established, and they were never successfully replaced by Israeli banks. Despite the degree of interconnection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the Israeli economy through the labor market and through trade, the territories have retained a substantial degree of financial autonomy.

I paraphrased

Israel closed down the British and Arab commercial banks operating in the territories, without setting up a successful alternative Israeli credit system to replace them.

I.e. what you objected to is the use of the active voice for the verb ‘close down’ instead of the source’s reliance on the passive voice. In this case, you don’t remove the passage, you alter the verb from transitive to intransitive. Nope!! Erase the passage, even if Van Arkadie’s syntax suggests an active voice, i.e. just after Israeli rule was established. You could have, if this struck you as problematical, asked me, or better still, googled around, and found ample quality books on the topic confirming my reading of the source. Nah.

• With regard to banking, one has to note that until 1967 foreign banks were operating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. When these areas came under Israeli Defense Forces control, their branches were closed down, and the cash forfeited. Their premises-usually leased property- are managed by Israel as absentee property.' Reuven Merhav, Rotem M Giladi, 'Role of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,' in Marshall J. Berger, Ora Ahimeir (eds.) Jerusalem: A City and Its Future, Syracuse University Press, 2002 978-0-815-62912-2 pp.175-220 p.187.

That unambiguously suggests Israel closed them down, even in the passive voice

• Israeli restrictions during this period included a closure of all banks operating in the WBGS on the eve of the 1967 Israeli occupation and a ban on non-Israeli banks that lasted until 1986, when the Bank of Palestine won an Israeli court case to reopen on of its branches in the Gaza Striop. Soon after that a Jordanian Bank (Cairo Amman Bank) was allowed to reopen one of its branches in the West Bank Osama Hamed, 'The Role of the Financial Sector,' in David Cobham, Nu'man Kanafani, eds. The Economics of Palestine: Economic Policy and Institutional Reform for a Viable Palestine State, Routledge, 2004 978-1-134-33709-5 pp.93-106 p.105 n.1

That unambiguously suggests Israel closed them down, even in the passive voice

• (3) 'The closure of the banks by Israel after the 1967 war prompted Jordan to complain to the Security Council.' Yehuda Lukacs, Israel, Jordan, and the Peace Process, Syracuse University Press, 1999 978-0-815-62855-2 pp.73-74.

That unambiguously states that Israel Israel closed them down.

The story is more complex, of course, and reminds me that if anything expansion of remarks on banking are required here. What is patently clear is that for the 7th time, you have reverted and removed material I wrote on sight, without examining the sources, or what I did, or checking to see if other sources support what is not an unusual statement, or even addressing the talk page to request 'collaborative' (your word) clarification beforehand. The option will almost always find prompt responses and solutions here. It's called loose-cannon removalist editing and hasd plague proportions in the I/P editing area.Nishidani (talk) 15:54, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

• (4)'The closure of all the banks and financial institutions that existed prior to occupation, as well as Israeli banks' discriminatory oolicies on loans and deposits, virtually deprived the territories' economy of its prime source of finance.' 'The Palestinian Financial Sector under Israel occupation,' UNCTAD 1989 p.7

I actually read the cited source (Van Arkadie) quite carefully prior to removing - and it quite clearly did not support the assertion that Israel closed the banks. Some of your other sources above - do. Had you cited one of them - I wouldn't have removed them. Information that doesn't pass verification vs. the cited source should be removed. I will further note that that "without setting up a successful alternative Israeli credit system to replace them" is imprecise, and is not supported by Van Arkadie - who notes that Israeli banks were unable to fully supplant the prior system (with the Dinar remaining in circulation) - but does not quite say what's in the article. Icewhiz (talk) 16:05, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

All you needed to do was change 'Israel closed' to 'were closed', and perhaps tweak the a word or two. You refused to exercise that collaborative option. As to sourcing, Christ or Yahweh, fro m the outset I have tried to keep sourcing to a minimum. This whole article is skimpy in my view. If you really want me to go into the details of what Israeli did, via Leumi Bank, there, then give me the go-ahead and I'll give thorough coverage. Numerous sources state that the Israeli moves in the banking sector created great difficulties for credit post 1967. In other words, the substance is not in contention, but how to tweak it. And note bene, good practice in cases iike this is to google round to see other explanations of the same issue,, and add them, while modifying the text. Elision on carping grounds of solidly sourceable material stating what ios well known is lazy, when not pretextual.Nishidani (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

(4) SYNTH - clearly SYNTH. Not related to the "conquest". Not related to the occupation. The first sentence is cherry-picked from the middle of a rather dated source (and one might argue on the facts vs. other territories - with other sources). The rest is basically from an essay on Ben-Gurion's positions slanted towards a certain direction.

Icewhiz (talk) 12:22, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Palestine remains the only Arab land which has been denied Arab rule and independent statehood.

In 1956, the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion, who also recognized that year that for Arabs what Zionism undertook to do was seen as theft, stated that: "Jordan has no right to exist.. The territory to the West of the Jordan should be made an autonomous region of Israel". That Zionism thought of partition agreements as temporary and aspired from the outset to incorporate all of Palestine into a Jewish state went back at least to declarations of intent made by Ben-Gurion in 1937-1938

Galtung's classic paper was one of the first major works grappling with the occupation and its consequences. It directly covers the topic, and is perfectly consonant with background.

Ben-Gurion's statement in 1956 that Israel had a right to the West Bank, and his statement that, from an Arab point of view, Zionist land takeovers were theft, and that Ben-Gurion and numerous Zionist leaders that their intent, prior to 1967, was to 'redeem the country in its entirety', 'throughout all of Palestine' self-evidently, as numerous sources note, bears on what happened after 1967 in the West Bank. This is so patently obvious and well-documented that it is hard to understand why you think a series of quotations underlining the facts should, ipso facto, constitute synthesis, rather than a simple arraying of the evidence in the record.Nishidani (talk) 16:04, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Galtung deals with perceptions - and you cherrypicked a sentence in the middle (which, I'll note, is probably possibly to refute - definitely post 1971 (when this was authored)). As for Ben-Gurion - it is SYNTH as the quotation is not in relation to the occupation. I certainly support a balanced presentation of the background of the conflict, however, placing this as the prefix to the conquest section (and one must note that Ben-Gurion was on the outs in 1967 - with no actual political power - so his prior views are far from relevant) - is far from a neutral presentation. Icewhiz (talk) 16:09, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

No. Read Galtung at least. It is not a study of perceptions. Every quotation from a source can be lambasted as 'cherrypicking'. Galtung by the way would be an excellent source to work up an historical background section, since he covers all of the arguments, rhetorical, or otherwise, used by the parties for their respective claims. Unfortunately for POV pushing, he does this in a balanced way. As for Ben-Gurion, we've just had a notable effort to demand a 'historical background' of the Zionist perspective. Well, Ben-Gurion's example was just what Bellezzasolo asked for, an historical precedent in Zionist thought for the idea that the West Bank is properly Israel's, before the fact occurred. So it is using a double standard to support an historical background section, and, on the other hand, reject what is already here by way of a Zionist background consideration concerning the West Bank from the most authoritative source imaginable. As to Ben Gurionb being on the 'outs' in 1967, many sources say his authority lay behind the decision to demolish the Moroccan Quarter, in 1967.Nishidani (talk) 16:46, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

For convenience, discussion on Talk:West Bank

Comment While there's certainly enough material to make a new article, the current state of Israeli occupation of the West Bank is dire. history graphs Israeli occupation of the West Bank February 2018 Israel–Syria incident I think it's factual to say that the main contributor to the article, Nishidani, is fairly Pro-Palestinian. The result is, desired or not, the article in its current state is almost a textbook POVFORK. For example, we have statements like: Ariel Sharon viewed the primary function of settling the West Bank as one of precluding the possibility of the formation of a Palestinian state, and his aim in promoting the 1982 invasion of Lebanon was to secure perpetual control of the former. Both sources for this are from the New Historians, so doesn't present all viewpoints on Ariel Sharon's motives with due weight. If you look at Israeli disengagement from Gaza, there's a lot more nuance about Ariel Sharon's motivations. The practice of demolishing Palestinian houses began within two days of the conquest of the area in the Old City of Jerusalem known as the Moroccan Quarter, adjacent to the Western Wall. On the night of 10 June, 100 families, dismissed by Teddy Kollek as Arab squatters in slum hovels, were given 3 hours notice to get out of their homes, whereupon army bulldozers razed the whole area, covering roughly an acre. Looking at Moroccan Quarter, this is clearly POV. This article talks about "had brought documents from the East Jerusalem municipality testifying to the poor sanitary conditions in the neighborhood and Jordanian plans to eventually evacuate it", and "A group of former residents wrote to Kollek to thank him for his assistance in resettling them in better housing conditions." Again, this section of the article lacks nuance, which is so important in our coverage of the conflict. There are plenty of other issues, like unqualified use of terms like "catastrophe of 1948", and "Judaization". These are loaded, POV terms. This article is already very large, and balancing some of these aspects will make it larger. There are plenty of issues with this article, these were the most easy to spot and demonstrate. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 23:25, 3 January 2019 (UTC) Baffled and more baffled. Do you really think/believe they razed the whole neighborhood a few days after capture because of bad sanitary conditions? Are there any history books out there that told you so?--TMCk (talk) 01:18, 4 January 2019 (UTC) You are welcome to use sources to edit that article. The idea however that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank is not a stand-alone topic or that the current article is either POV or a POV-fork of this article is laughable. nableezy - 00:03, 4 January 2019 (UTC) @TracyMcClark: Obviously, there were other reasons, like the massive numbers of Jewish worshippers expected after they were finally able to pray at the Western Wall for the first time in 19 years. However, it isn't like the Israelis demolished an affluent neighbourhood and failed to rehouse the residents, or rehoused them in a slum. They demolished a slum and rehoused the residents in better conditions. The whole point here is that the article lacks the nuance that arises from development by multiple editors on different sides of the conflict. @Nableezy: I never argued that it is not a stand-alone topic. My argument is that the current state of the article is problematic with respect to NPOV. There's clearly been an attempt to be neutral, but I don't think the end result is. I don't claim to be neutral on this topic (but then again, neither are you, I think it's fair to say). POVEDITOR is a good essay on this. The best quality articles on this topic arise from multiple editors with different POVs. What we have here is 350 KBs by one editor, with some tweaking. Which also makes it a very intimidating article to edit, not least as it reads somewhat more like an academic paper than the typical Wikipedia article. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 11:14, 4 January 2019 (UTC) Nobody is stopping anybody from making edits to that page. That it reads like an academic paper and not the typical Wikipedia article is something I am quite proud of, Nishidani created an article using the best possible sources available, and not, as is typical in Wikipedia, random news reports about that contain some codeword that an editor insists on including because it supports his or her personal viewpoint. By all means, edit that article, provided you have the sources for your edits obviously. But since you agree it is a stand-alone topic, and this is a merge request, I take it you are saying "no" to the merge proposal? nableezy - 17:21, 4 January 2019 (UTC) The best quality articles on this topic arise from multiple editors with different POVs. It's news to me, after 13 years, that there are best quality articles in the I/P area. I can think of a couple, but they were all written by single editors like Onceinawhile. If you can direct me to those you're thinking off here, I'd appreciate it.Nishidani (talk) 22:40, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 21:44, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Israeli security concerns

Following this revert of well sourced information (though needing expansion - Jordanian artillery fire, Palestinian cross-border raids pre-1967, concerns of rocket fire at Israel, and additional security concerns) I've placed a POV tag. Israeli security concerns are part of any serious analysis of the Israeli occupation from a geopolitical perspective, including most analysis of possible solutions that would end the occupation. Icewhiz (talk) 09:02, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) see below. Onceinawhile (talk) 09:04, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Icewhiz: added the below paragraph. The placement at the top of the article seemed very odd, and it is missing important context.

During the 1967 Six-Day War, Jordanian artillery shelled the suburbs of Jerusalem and coastal cities. In parallel to the Israeli offensive in Jersualem, Israeli forces moved into the northern West Bank where long-range Jordanian artillery was bombarding Israel. Following the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza which increased Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza, preventing the West Bank from becoming a platform for rocket attacks against Israel is one of Israel's main security concerns. Since the West Bank is very close to all major Israeli population centers, such attacks would place nearly all Israeli community under threat. Furthermore, the ability to operate Ben Gurion Airport, Israel's main international airport, would come into question.

Examples of missing context:

• The shelling / artillery bombardment in 1967 was Egyptian-led - the Jordanian army was headed and directed by Egyptians. The attacks were in retaliation for Israel's destruction of the Egyptian air force.
• Stating that the "Israeli disengagement from Gaza increased Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel" is propaganda. The reality was much more complex. The Israeli political need to play tough in front of its voters poisoned any hope of positive relations between Gaza and Israel, which manifested itself in a variety of actions that increased tension. The Sharon-Olmert governments' meddling in intra-Palestinian politics likely had more to do with the rocket attacks that any other factor. The withdrawal was just one of many factors.

Onceinawhile (talk) 09:03, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

As Jordanian artillery fire and cross-border raiding by Palestinians preceded the occupation, and the on-going security concerns are one of the major reasons for the occupation - placement at the beginning makes sense. The cited source clearly ties the occupation to Jordanian artillery fire (that the Egyptians directed (or not - this is debated) it is immaterial to the Israeli security concern - the possibility of foreign influence only increases the concern). Your assertion that concerns of rocket fire are propaganda are interesting - but RSes seem to analyze this concern (as well as the concern of shoulder-slung SAMs being employed in the hills around Ben-Gurion airport). Israeli security concerns are quite obviously a rather major component of the occupation itself as well as any agreed solution that would end the occupation - being a major item in on-going negotiations for the past few decades. Icewhiz (talk) 09:10, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Right. I agree that Israeli security concerns are a component of the occupation. Security concerns were also a component of Josef Fritzl's 20-year-plus confinement of his family to the basement.

I have no objection to security concerns being in this article, but they must be in their proper context.

As to your points, there is no debate at all about who made the decision to launch artillery fire in 1967. I will bring RS quotes if you like. Why the artillery fire was launched is not at all immaterial - Jordan never threatened Israel, and was only ever signed up to attack in retaliation. There is no debate about this - Jordan was never considered a proactive threat.

My point on Gaza is the same. If you want to raise it as a parallel to the West Bank, then you have to include all the context. Making Israel look like an innocent victim, when both sides were to blame for the poor subsequent relations between Israel and Gaza, is classic propaganda and not befitting of our encyclopedia.

As to your placement point, you are clearly trying to imply that if Israel disengaged from the West Bank there would be security concerns, but you have done so without sources. It is classic WP:SYNTH.

Onceinawhile (talk) 09:25, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Meantime all the article is without the proper context removing it.Its clear WP:POV violation --Shrike (talk) 09:36, 22 January 2019 (UTC)