Template:Did you know nominations/Old City of Hebron

Old City of Hebron

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Old City of Hebron

• ... that the Old City of Hebron (pictured) became the third World Heritage Site in the State of Palestine in 2017? Source: Palestine: Properties inscribed on the World Heritage List

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Tayseer Sboul

Created by Onceinawhile (talk). Self-nominated at 11:07, 20 February 2020 (UTC).

• Starting review: Alex2006 (talk) 08:00, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral: - n
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: The article complies with almost all the requirements for DYK, but I see two problems: the first is that at the moment it is out of scope: it does not deal about the historic center of Hebron, but above all about the Israel occupation of the historic center of Hebron. It is not even explained why UNESCO considers it as a World Heritage Site. I think that first of all we need an "history" section where to put the info about the occupation, and then the article needs to be expanded, or to be renamed. Moreover, it is not completely neutral; for example, in the last sentence of the introduction, the source used (haaretz) is a liberal, left wing Israel newspaper. It would be good to know also the point of view of the government about the reason for the expulsion of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron. Alex2006 (talk) 11:49, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

There are severe POV problems with this article:

• The article it doesn't mention all the controversy and criticism surrounding of site recognition by UNESCO [1]

 Now added to article. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

• It only gives a small one sentence about Jewish community while omitting its rich history and what happened to her along the history

 Per discussion below, covered adequately at Hebron#History.. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

• It give POV explanation to the security measure by IDF from one side POV source without mention terrorist activities by Palestinian groups.

 Per discussion below, covered adequately at Hebron#History.. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

--Shrike (talk) 13:02, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Alessandro57 and Shrike: for your comments. I focused my efforts when building this article on setting out the main sights, the divisions of the city, the current legal status, and finding good maps (the maps bit being the most time consuming...) All these points are good and fair, but this article is not up for WP:FA so it isn’t expected to be a fulsome account of all the political and historical complexities. These points are all addressed in great detail in the parent article at Hebron.

How can we address your POV concerns without turning this into a very long and complex article and without duplicating all the information at Hebron?

Onceinawhile (talk) 13:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

The point of view of the government about the reason for the expulsion of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron seems to be explained here. I say "seems to be" because it is "a liberal, left wing Israel newspaper":) Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Selfstudier:, then this point of view can be added (with its reference) to the article, and a point is solved. @Onceinawhile:, anyway, if, as you affirm, the "political and historical complexities" of Hebron are fully addressed in the article about the city, there is no need to repeat them here. Then I would focus the scope of this article on the historic center, writing more about the cultural and art treasures of the center itself, and maybe mentioning the controversy arisen because of the site recognition by UNESCO. Political and historical problems can be addressed through a redirect to the Hebron article or one of its sections. Alex2006 (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree I suggest removing the TIPH part, the UNESCO controversy should discussed from all angles also a connection to Jewish people should be mentioned explicitly.I think also if we want the hook about the Unesco the controversy should be part of the hook -Shrike (talk) 18:03, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

The observer group was originally set up following the well known massacre at the Ibrahimi mosque and since Israel is now insisting that it be included in the proposed annexation map being drawn up by an Israeli-US committee, it seems pertinent to retain the TIPH material in some (perhaps amended) form.Selfstudier (talk) 18:30, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what precisely you mean by "UNESCO controversy", do you refer to the U.S./Israel objection to the listing? If I recall there were only 3 votes against the proposal. However, I agree with the reviewer that it should be explained why UNESCO decided to list it.Selfstudier (talk) 18:53, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Alessandro57: would you mind taking a look at the revised article and let me know if you would like any further changes? Onceinawhile (talk) 16:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment Nothing really has changed the article use the same POV language usage of partisan sites like +972 and Betzelem while no sites with opposites POVs provide only half truths for example it does mention IDF security measures and the Hardship of Palestinian Arabs but didn't say why they where in force. IMO in current form the article could not be promoted --Shrike (talk) 16:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I still don't see the reason why UNESCO inserted the historic center in the List of the heritage sites: this should be mentioned in the article. Moreover, I don't think that writing "covered adequately at Hebron#History" on this page solves the POV problem, since we cannot expect that a reader jumps by herself from this article to the one about Hebron: you should at least provide two redirects in the article explaining that if someone wants to know the Jewish history of the site and wants a non - POV explaination of the security measure by IDF should go to the main article (and, of course, it would be much better to have some information also here about these issues). Cheers, Alex2006 (talk) 10:22, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

There were two aspects to the listing, the listing itself and the contemporaneous "in danger" listing (which is supposedly why the listing was expedited). I will see what can be found for both aspects. I do think we should be a little careful that do not mix up religion with nationality. The "Jewishness" is a religious thing (ie the comparative is Muslim/Christian). A listing is inscribed along with a nationality (usually, the Old City was proposed by Jordan and is not categorized under any country). In this case, that is Palestinian and not Israeli. So when Netanyahu is quoted as saying "[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/07/unesco-recognises-hebron-as-palestinian-world-heritage-site “This time they decided that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is a Palestinian site, meaning not Jewish, and that it’s in danger." it is this that is the POV position ie wrongly comparing Palestine with Jewish (a country with a religion). This mischaracterization is the basis of all of the Israeli complaints. Shrike, all sources are biased, should you actually have access to these mysterious non partisan sources then why not add them to the article or are you simply content to complain about the sources that don't agree with your own POV?Selfstudier (talk) 14:29, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Selfstudier:, I wanted to ask the same: ;-) @Shrike:, why don't you work together with the author of the article and try to reach a compromise? Alex2006 (talk) 17:20, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I try to make it less POV but I think its nominator responsibility to make the article to meet the DYK standards. --Shrike (talk) 17:33, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I had to read the ICOMOS report to try and verify the real reason for inscription so what follows is OR. If I had to summarize the report, ICOMOS were forced to consider the application on an expedited basis based on Palestinian allegations of a threat to the site and while they did conclude that the property was under threat they were not convinced (that is, the case was not sufficiently made) that the listing was otherwise justified and sought a field visit to take that forward. Then that field visit never happened because they were refused permission and subsequently UNESCO passed a resolution inscribing the property onto the list of sites in danger based on what they had (ie what I just described). Locating secondary sources describing this might be a bit of a problem but I will have a go anyway. In the meantime, I directly linked the report (and the submissions) in the article text, at least people can read it for themselves (these are however, primary sources).Selfstudier (talk) 19:25, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

I located a couple of secondary sources to document the above, I think that should clarify the "why" of the listing, that it was essentially a political decision based on the information available at the time.Selfstudier (talk) 13:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

• Hi, I was asked to come over and have a look at this nomination. Politics aside, the article seems terribly slanted toward the so-called State of Palestine and also the Israeli "occupation" and "settlers". It also has only one paragraph talking about the actual buildings, while paragraph after paragraph decries the "occupation". If you are talking about the Old City of Hebron, you cannot ignore the millenia-old Jewish presence and rely on a link to Hebron. (Anyway, I don't even see a link to Hebron#History, which itself is a very long section in the latter article.) The third paragraph under "UNESCO nomination" seems to be talking about another issue, "Controversy". It also makes no sense to quote The Jerusalem Post so extensively. Yoninah (talk) 18:22, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

• Take a look at Old City (Jerusalem), which I refer to often in my writing. This is a much better example of an "Old City" article—history, archaeology, buildings, population, and UNESCO status. Yoninah (talk) 18:25, 11 April 2020 (UTC)