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restored previous intro

Lebanon is not a democracy per western standards because of syrian and hizballah influence obviously - it's hardly even soverign.

As for population and area stats, this stat was chosen specifically as an estimate - it used golan heights but not west bank or gaza. there's no room to enter to these intricacies in the intro. It was used per other articles and accepted as such in consencus long time ago. Please note that starting this again in intro is disruptive. These issues are covered in the info box footnotes and in the geographical, demographics sections etc. Saying that Israel has a population of X over Y doesn't suggest the nature of Y btw. So it's a very neutral figure considering.

Same goes for the other changes in intro - there's no place for them : for example, the strange talk about the declaration of indepedence addition. Amoruso 10:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I fully disagree. First of all, Lebanon is a parliamentary democracy of a confessional nature and is a totally sovereign state. See: Politics of Lebanon and List of Democratic States on Wikipedia itself (internal consistency is important, no?) and external sources such as the US State Department [1], and this FOCUS Magazine special on Lebanon[2].

As for the population estimates, I think we should use the Israeli CBS stats as another editor introduced because they are the most recent and the distnction between populations residing inside Israel itself in the in the occupied territories is important. Having not been aware of the previous debate on this matter, I was not intending to be disruptive, merely accurate. I would also appreciate it if you could direct me to the previous discussion so that I can be nrought up to date.

Third off, the "strange talk" about the declaration of independence was a direct quote from the document itself that I put in, in lieu of the claim that present-day Jews are indigenous to Israel. This is a speculatory claim that is debunked by DNA research into the lineage of Ashkenazi Jews and unless you have a citation for it from a respected journal, it remains a claim.

I would appreciate it if you would consider the points I have raised and we could come to some sort of consensus rather than me just jumping in a restoring the previous changes I have made. I would also like to say thanks for your taking this up in dialogue after not addressing me directly when I attempted to join the Wikiproject:Israel and was so unceremoniously chucked out. Thanks. Tiamut 12:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

As you can see above and in the archives, issues like you raised have been discussesd and disgested forever and ever and again. It finally reached peace with the last version.
Stats: This figure uses the CBS number. As you can see, it was linked to it. And in the infobox, there are just above 7 million people. You do realise that we start to say 20,000 here, 28,000 there it will make the introduction UGLY. I'm not aware of any such debates in any other leads. This issue is exactly discussed like you wish in the geography location and I think that's enough and fair and balanced and informative. We should try to maintain a regular type of lead for countries. this is also the reason the introduction doesn't mention Jerusalem anymore, because it brought up discussions that are not related to leads of other countries' articles in wikipedia. Israel is just like any other country and is deserving of a normal lead. This current lead is non provocative. It uses an approximate stat of an even lower region than the one which includes the golan heights, but lists that there are 7 million peopole residing in Israel. It's all true. It follows up on both stats from the infobox which is the only legitimate ref in the article.
"DNA research" issue: The fact that Jews are indigenous to Israel is not disputed by any serious scholar. It's a ground basic fact that goes to the heart of the Israel article. If it's disputed by Arabs for instance this is not the place for it. You can see how Israeli supporters do not go around and disrupt the articles of Syria, Iran and so on.
Lebanon issue: Lebanon is simply not a democracy like Israel. It may have a parliament, but does it have a supreme court that's regarded highly in the western world ? It doesn't even have a unified army which responds to a government branch - which is a basic requirement for seperation of powers in a democracy. It's a known fact Israel is currently the only democracy in the middle east, which is the reason for the historic u.s support too. Israel too might have troubles with human right issues, but as you can see in that section, Israel is the only country with free press for instance. Saying that Israel is a democracy like Lebaon is both misleading and false. Amoruso 13:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"This is a speculatory claim that is debunked by DNA research into the lineage of Ashkenazi Jews" - Where? I try to stay up to date on all current research in this field, and have never heard of such "debunking". Please explain what you mean.
I don't think the "indigenous" claim should be in the intro, simply because of the difficulty of saying who is indigenous - even the bible says the Hebrew came to Canaan (Israel) and conquered it from the people living there (at about 12th century BC I believe). It's just not a very useful word, I think, and should be avoided.
Lebanon is hardly a democracy. First of all, Syria has been meddling in its affairs for years, and still is. It's better now, that the Syrian military pulled out (under heavy international pressure), but still. Its democracy is also questionable due to the special allocation of positions between the sects - the president has to be a christian, the PM a sunni and the speaker of the house a Shi'a.
According to the Politics of Lebanon article, up until 1992 "civil war precluded the exercise of political rights". Also, "The last presidential election was in 1998.", despite the fact that "The Parliament, in turn, elects a President every 6 years to a single term". It's been 8 years since 1998 - why hasn't there been another election?
Thus, saying that Lebanon has had trouble maintaining its democracy is accurate. Perhaps we should forgo the "had trouble maintaining..." sentence, and just call Israel "the only stable parliamentary democracy".
Lastly, please indent your comments using ":". okedem 13:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Stable will be misleading. Israle has elections every two years ;) . Indigenous is ok I think. All humans came from Africa. There were people before the Jews in the land obviously, but that goes for any indigenous population in the world. It's still indigneous (ancient enough...) Amoruso 13:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I find the previous lead more WP:NPOV. According to WP:Lead we should put in the lead the main points of what is discussed in the article; and the claim that Israel is the *only* democracy in the region does not fulfill this requirement. Also, the entire world considers Lebanon to be a democracy, and an individual poster's arguments why Lebanon should not be considered a democracy are really irrelevant as per WP:No original research. What should be in the lead is that Israel is indeed a democracy, but maybe also that its respect for human rights is questionable. Dianelos 15:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
There you go - mentioning NPOV in the first sentence, and breaching it in the last. No, Israel's respect for human rights is not "questionable", and that should definately not be written in the lead. okedem 16:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Dianelos - Why are you making changes even when there is an objection here?
I've removed these sentences:
  1. "It was established by the United Nations in 1947, and had to fight five major wars to maintain its existence." - It was not established by the UN, rather by the Jews living in Palestine in 1948. The UN said a Jewish state should be established, it didn't do anything to establish it. The wars bit is irrelevant, and questionable - were all the wars neccessary? Many Israelis would disagree. Were all five wars major?
  2. "Israel is a mature parliamentary democracy, but its respect for human rights has been criticized especially in the Israeli-occupied territories." - The word "mature" seems out of place here, and the criticism part is totally irrelevant, and inappropriate for the lead.
  3. "It boasts one of the strongest military forces in the world." - That's not even true, and once again, irrelevant.
I added ", and is a parliamentary democracy." after the description of it's geographical location. okedem 17:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
As per your first comments above: Actually Israel's respect for human rights is questionalbe according to international and Israeli human rights organizations - especially in the occupied territories. Even inside of Israel Arab Israeli citizens are not allowed to buy land the way Jewish citizens are. I don't know of any Western democracy where its minorities are thus discriminated against. This source states that "the discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel constitutes one of the most severe infringements of equality in the State of Israel. The repeated instances of discrimination cover all aspects of life..." As for Israel's policies in the occupied territories the list of human rights abuses is long (targeted assassinations, bulldozing of homes, expropriation of land without compensation, administrative detentions, use of torture, etc). Some serious people argue that Israel’s policies in the West Bank amount to an apartheid, see here and here. I do understand that Israel has been on war footing throughout its history and therefore to compare Israel's human rights situation to other Western democracies is not quite fair, but still I think that to mention that Israel's respect for human rights has been questioned is quite factual and neutral. Anyway if you disagree feel free to remove this bit from the lead while we discuss it here. Dianelos 17:37, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
okedem, as per your second set of comments:
  1. My understanding is that the international community via the UN played a fundamental part in the establishment of Israel. After all it defined the maps and gave international legitimacy to the Zionist movement. There wasn't a country there before and after UN's resolution there was. I think this is certainly something that belongs to the lead. - Also, how do you mean that that Israel's wars are "irrelevant"? They were necessary for the survival of the state. The 1948 war defined the green line which is the currently internationally recognized border of Israel.
  2. I placed the word "mature" to distinguish Israel from other fledging Middle East democracies such as Lebanon's. I think it's certainly fair and significant to state that Israel's democracy is mature.
  3. Israel does boast one of the strongest military forces in the world, both in conventional and nuclear capability - and this too is one of the main points of information about Israel. Let me find some references for you. Dianelos 17:52, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"Arab Israeli citizens are not allowed to buy land the way Jewish citizens are." - This claim is false, completely false. There used to be a small bit of truth in it - new towns built by the JNF were intended for Jews only, as that is the purpose for which the JNF recieves donations. That was the only limitation (new towns, buying the property from the JNF). However this is no longer the case, after a Supreme Court ruling on the subject, several years ago.
The Apartheid comparisons aren't even worth mentioning, as the allegations are usually only as deep as "it's apartheid", without any actual evidence or truthful claims. Israel is an occupier of the West Bank, and there are human rights violations there, but they have nothing to do with apartheid, and having no place in the lead, especially as some sort of reservation of Israel's democracy.
The discrimination against Arabs in Israel may be the most severe human rights violation in Israel, but that just speaks for Israel's good human rights record - the discrimination is minor, and is mainly about less governmental investment in Arab towns. Arabs go to the same schools, hospitals, universities, jobs, public transportations etc. as the rest of the citizens. They vote, have political parties and rallies, have members in parliament, and publish newspapers. They pay the same taxes, and recieve the same social benefits.
  1. The UN resolution is relevant, but the UN didn't establish it. You can say something like "it was established in May 14, 1948, in keeping with the UN resolution...".
  2. I just don't really think the word mature is necessary here - does it say that in any other article, about any other country?
  3. Israel has a strong military, compared with its neighbors, and per capita, but definitely not one of the strongest in the world, according to size, or military expenditure (see here). Israel's alleged nuclear capability does place it in a special category, but that is not military strength in the usual sense of the word. okedem 18:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Difficult to claim that discrimination against Arabs in Israel is minor, when there is ongoing ethnic cleansing. 30 Arab familes in Israel were driven from their homes just last year [3] (March 14, 2005) ........ Dozens of Christian families have fled their homes in northern Israel, accusing the Israeli police of failing to protect them from attacks by their Druze neighbours. ..... The local police commissioner, Dan Ronen, told the Knesset committee on interior affairs that it was not the job of the police to become involved in inter-communal violence. PalestineRemembered 22:02, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
Ethnic cleansing?! How dare you?! Do you even know what ethnic cleansing means? By this statement you just lost all credibility, and definitely no point in assuming good faith with you.
Quite often there's violence between different Arab communities, and even different families in one community. The police don't want to get involved, because they always end up getting attacked by all sides. The police are basically afraid of entering Arab towns, and I can't blame them. When the police wanted to build stations in Arab towns, the local councils wouldn't let them, they said - we'll handle our own affairs. But when they start attacking one another, suddenly they cry for help.
And just so the readers of this page know, those Christian families shortly returned to their homes, and the conflict was resolved with the help of community leaders. okedem 00:11, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
  • Let's try and keep our cool here folks. Whatever our personal opinions are, let's just remember than everything included in the article needs to be verifiable. Throwing around unsubstantiated claims of Ethnic Cleansing helps no one, the same goes for declarations of bad faith. There are enough editors watching this page that there is no need for this discussion to get personal. -- Chabuk 00:25, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Lebanon is not recognised as a democracy at all. Actually, it's a very well known fact and the official position of many , including the united states, that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east. The human rights have nothing to do with leads with any country, not even syria, let alone should it be here. The existing lead follows on the leads of others country articles. No provocative changes should be made unless consensus is agreed. Please respect this article and do not push any POV sentences into it. Quoting the declaration of indepedence in the lead is also very non lead and I didn't find it anywhere in other countries' articles. There's no problem in saying that it's the only Jewish state - obviously this is what Israel has said. Amoruso 17:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

As to your question about arab purchasing, that's not true. Anybody is allowed to purchase land the same way but some land belong to the keret hakayemet, an organizaiton which bought land at the time of the establishment of Israel. It had a policy to sell land only to Jews and the question remains whether that's constituionally legal or not , a serious question. The supreme court actually ruled that it isn't, but many scholars dispute that since it's in the realm of private law. Amoruso 17:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

btw, the lebanon article itself says lebanon isn't a democracy (yet). Amoruso 17:48, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

let's check lead of iran :

Iran (help·info) (Persian: ايران‎ ​, Īrān, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ايران‎ ​ transliteration: Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Īrān), is a country located in west Asia, known also as Persia. Iran borders Armenia, Azerbaijan (including its Nakhichevan exclave), and Turkmenistan to the north, Pakistan and Afghanistan to the east, and Turkey and Iraq to the west. In addition, it borders the Persian Gulf, across which lie Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Shi'a Islam is the official state religion and Persian is its official language.

Throughout history, Iran has been of great geostrategic importance because of its central location in Eurasia. Iran is a member and co-founder of the United Nations, NAM, the OIC, and OPEC. Iran is also significant in international politics on account of its large supply of petroleum. The name Iran is a cognate of Aryan and literally means "Land of the Aryans."

It says it's a country, says its borders, says it's islamic, doesn't mention any disputes (for example with the U.A.E over islands), says language and religion, saying it's a member of un..., says it has petroleum, and mentions aryans. no menion of human rights, no mention of controvesies over wanting to commit genocide in other peoples, no mention of anything else.

We'll keep Israel article much the same clean way then. Amoruso 17:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

none of your additions belong in the lead Dainelos. Not the U.N resolution which doesn't appear in other mandate countries, not the military power of course which doesn't appear in any country whatsoever (in fact, the army is smaller than Egypt and Iran of course), and not the mature comment, since it is in fact the only democracy per above comments. Amoruso 18:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Amoruso, as per Lebanon's democracy: Lebanon is a democracy by any measure, albeit a fledging one. The European Union considers it so see here, the United Nations too see here, apparently George W Bush as of September 19, 2006 thinks so too: "We Worked To Enforce A UN Resolution That Required Syria To End Its Occupation Of Lebanon – Then Our Enemies Set Out To Destabilize The Young Democracy. When Hezbollah Launched An Unprovoked Attack On Israel That Undermined The Democratic Government In Beirut, The World United To Support Lebanon's Democracy.", see here. And indeed August 14 he said "We certainly hope the cease-fire holds because it is step one of making sure that Lebanon's democracy is strengthened." Actually I think that those who deny Lebanon's democracy because they don't approve of the way the Lebanese people voted on the may 2005 elections display a strongly undemocratic attitude.

As per the issue of "Arab purchasing": The picture you describe above does not agree with this article by The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and I quote: "...a turning point after almost fifty years of discriminatory land-use policy on behalf of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli government, which still owns 85% of Israel’s land. According to the court, government resources cannot be allocated to a group or an agency that discriminates against non-Jewish citizens of Israel." The agency in question is "Israel's Land Authority" which in fact does not buy the land it administers. As you can see in the article this agency did not obey the decision by the Supreme Court of Israel, which casts some doubt as to the rule of law in Israel. - There are too many neutral and serious sources that document the discrimination against Israel's Arab citizens; I mean even the Israeli interior minister agrees calling this "institutional discrimination"(see the "Human Rights" section in the article for a reference) - I don't really see the point in debating this issue.

As per the leads of Wikipedia articles of other countries, what we are here trying to do is to write a good article about Israel. Israel is in many ways a unique country. To my knowledge is the only country in the world that is an occupying power for some 40 years now (or is considered an occupying power by the international community at large). It's the only Jewish country. It has one of the strongest military forces in the world. It's a mature democracy. However, its respect of human rights is questionable. These are all factual and main points about Israel and should as per WP:Lead be in the lead - I think.

Incidentally, I would like to ask the other editors to present some references when making claims in the talk page, as per WP:Verifiability. In contentious subject matters such as Israel or the Israel Arab conflict this is especially important because there is clearly much propaganda around and it is our task to cut through the noise. Dianelos 19:12, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Lebanon is indeed on its way to become a democracy hopefully , but it's still not so. your partial diffs are already depicted in the lebanon article. Obviously it can't be a democracy as long as Hizballah is an occupying force controlled by Iran and syria has the influence it does. As for the arab citizens, your refs are interesting and you can add them in in articles dealing with this subject. What I told you is the factual representation in Israel as I've dealt with the issue directly. It is not relevant to the lead anyway so I will not indulge in the matter further - although I will repeat that you actually referred to the keret hakayemet in your ref. And no , Israel is not a unique country - this is exactly the point. An attempt to say it's a unique country is an attempt to make it illegetimate and that can not be allowed. It doesn't have one of the strongest armies in the world. It has a medium strong army, simply because of its limited size. It does have one of the best airforces, that's true. But far than the strongest army, it is not even close to the standards of many. It's not an occupying power, firstly, it has a territorial dispute iwth other countries. There are many occupying powers starting with the UK of course, Russia, Arab states like Syria (with turkey, lebanon), ,Iran (iraq, u.a.e), France (colonies still in their control), sudan, morocoo (western sahara), indonseia and malaysia, china (being largest occupier probably) and many others. Also many in Europe Including denmark for example. Israel holding areas which are essentially its own after defensive wars is definitlly not an "occupying state" and of course far from being the only one. And your last sentence proves the jist of it - please take propaganda elsewhere. The intro shall remain "clean" per other country articles. Amoruso 19:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
"The agency in question is "Israel's Land Authority" which in fact does not buy the land it administers." - No, the agency in question is the JNF, not the land authority. And why would it buy land? That doesn't make sense. Most of Israel's land is owned by the government, and leased (formally for 99 years at a time) to the citizens. Another part of the land is owned by the JNF - this agency collected donations from Jews worldwide to purchase land in Palestine for the use of Jews, to build a Jewish state. The JNF's charter prohibits it from selling land to non-Jews, since that's not what the donations were for. I'll say this again - the JNF land is privately owned land, not state-property.
As I said before, Arabs enjoy equal rights, and the only discrimination is in some resource allocation. This is minor, though still very wrong. The "institutional" remark was made in the context of Israel's society, and using it here, without proper context, makes it appear as though Arabs are treated like blacks in early 20th century USA or in South Africa's apartheid society.
Anyway, you can point to many valid points - doesn't mean they should all be in the lead, or the lead will grow exponentially. okedem 19:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Amoruso, can you provide any references that would satisfy WP:Verifiability for your claim that Israel is not an occupying power, and that on the contrary the UK, Russia, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and Denmark are occupying powers? Frankly it seems to me that your views tend to be both biased and unreferenced - very far from Wikipedia's standards for neutrality.
okedem, I agree that not all valid points should go in the lead - but the main points should be as per WP:Lead. Israel's great military power is one of these points I think. I see now that my wording in the sense that the UN established Israel in 1947 is not quite appropriate, even though I still feel that the role of the international community and of the UN must be pointed at somehow.
Here are some references about Israel having one of the strongest military forces in the world. M.J.Rosenberg director of policy analysis for Israel Policy Forum says Israel is the 4th strongest military power on earth here. M.J.Rosenberg certainly appears to by knowledgeable, see here. Stanley Aronowitz also claims that Israel is the 4th strongest military on earth here. Israel is ranked as the third strongest military force by combat power by this site which specializes in military matters. If there are no good reasons against I intend to add this information to the article and its lead.
Also my understanding reading the referenced article above is that Arab Israelis were discriminated against from buying/leasing land from Israel's Land Authority. After all it states "Israel Lands Authority still inhibits the Ka’adan’s right to live in Katzir." Do you have any references in the sense that Arab citizens of Israel are not discriminated against by the Israel Lands Authority (which administers about 80% of all the land in Israel)?
As for the "institutional" remark making it appear as throuh Arabs are treated like blacks in the early 20th century USA or in South Africa's apartheid society, a) that quote is referenced so that the interested reader can find the context, and b) many people do criticize Israel's government's policies towards the Arabs, especially in the occupied territories, as reminiscent of Apartheid, see for example this article by the award-winning Middle East correspondent Chris McGreal published in Guardian, or this article by Btselem, or this rather frank one published in Haaretz from which I quote: "Chief Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak used the phrase 'long-term occupation' to justify the Israel government's permanent, massive investments in the territories. To describe a situation where two populations, in this case one Jewish and the other Arab, share the same territory but are governed by two separate legal systems, the international community customarily uses the term 'apartheid.' Prof. Amnon Rubinstein has coined an alternative phrase, 'enclave-based justice.'"

Currently the lead includes this statement: "It [Israel] is ... the nation state of the indigenous people of Eretz Yisrael" I think this statement is grossly inaccurate. At the end of the 19th century only about 15,000 Jews lived in Palestine, which represented a small fraction of the people who lived there (See: Justin McCarthy, "The Population of Palestine: Population History and Statistics of the Late Ottoman Period and the Mandate", Columbia University Press, 1990). And Stephen R. Shalom has this to say in this article: "Who were the indigenous people of Palestine? Pro-Israel propaganda has argued that most Palestinians actually entered Palestine after 1917, drawn to the economic dynamism of the growing Jewish community, and thus have no rights to Palestine. This argument has been elaborated in Joan Peters' widely promoted book, From Time Immemorial. However, the book has been shown to be fraudulent and its claim false. The indigenous population was mostly Muslim, with a Christian and a smaller Jewish minority." If no good references are presented I intend to remove this statement from the lead - in any case it's not one of the main points of the article as per [WP:lead].

I have already demonstrated above that Lebanon too is considered a democracy by the international community including the US government, so the statement in the lead in the sense that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is erroneous. I intend to delete this bit also. By the way does anybody object to the mention of Israel being a mature democracy? I think this is certainly factual, neutral, and also honors Israel. Outside of Europe there are really few countries in the world that can be called mature democracies (The US, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, and Israel I would think). Dianelos 06:28, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. Military strength - is there mention of the nation's military strength in any other article, about any other country? I wasn't able to find it. It has no place in the article in it's current form ("one of the strongest..."). Maybe when it's more factual ("one of the largest per capita...") it could be somewhere in the article, but not in the lead.
  2. I can't bring references that say that Arabs are not discriminated against by the land authority, same as I can't bring references that say that the moon isn't made of green cheese. It just isn't, and they just aren't.
  3. The Kaadan/Katzir case is a bit more complicated than this - Katzir is a town built by the JNF, and is considered a "community settlement". That means it has a admissions board (formed by the residents), and they can choose to accept whoever they wish, unlike a regular town. They chose not to accept Mr. Kaadan. He does supposedly have the option of appealing to the Land Authority, which does have authority over the matter. However, the land authority, though it can, never intervens with the decisions of these boards, in behest of Jews or Arabs (and many Jews don't get accepted to settlements like that).
  4. "Institutional discrimination" - The reader can read the context of the article, but not the context of the whole thing. He can't get the information that arabs ARE treated as equal almost in all aspects, and that the discrimination is minor. Just giving that quote, without the proper background, would give a false picture.
  5. You have to seperate the two issues - Israeli-Arabs, and the Palestinians. The "Institutional" remark had nothing to do witht the Palestinians. The West Bank is territory taken by Israel in 1967, which no one wanted back. Jordan relinqueshed all claims of it, even though it was theirs. Israel wanted to return the Gaza Strip to Egypt during the peace talks, but they declined. So the people there are still under military rule, with small areas of self rule. Israel is in the process of leaving these areas, but has encountered massive resistance from the Palestinians themselves, who can't seem to control their urge to kill - Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip, and instead of just living, building up their economy, and trying to give a good example for Israel to leave more territories, the Palestinians there continue to bombard Israel with missiles, and attack and take a soldier hostage (Gilad Shalit). Do you know why the terminals from Gaza to Israel are closed for a long time now? Because every time they're opened, to allow for transport of goods or people, the terminal is attacked by terrorists, or they try to sneak a suicide bomber past the check up point. Most Israelis want a Palestinian state - but the Palestinians aren't making it easy.
Israel does deserve criticism for the building of the settlements in the west bank, and all the problem that has caused, but it's a lot more complicated than a sentence or two.
  1. I have already said the word "indigenous" doesn't belong there, so I see no point in arguing over it.
  2. The word "mature" isn't used any other articles, and is way too vague for usage here. What's mature, anyway? okedem 09:32, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Dianelos, you make some compelling points, backed by research. I support your proposal to remove the indigenous claim, something I tried to substitute with a quotation from the Israeli Declaration of Independence so as to point to the State's belief that it is operating in this capacity. It was dismissed as "strange talk" by others, even though it was a direct quotation. Perhaps you can find a better way to paraphrase it. The strength of Israel's military should also be mentioned in the lead, in my opinion, because of its relevancy in a high conflict zone. Also, the institutionalized discrimination is something that we should defenitely consider including the lead. I would object, however, to calling Israel's democracy a "mature democracy". The democratic system there is hardly 60 years old and making a value judgement of that kind constitutes original research. I stand by the idea that if Israel is going to be described as the only parliamentary democracy, that this be changed to one of two and that Lebanon be mentioned as well. There is no need to mention Lebanon if we do not quantify how many parliamentary democracies there are in the Middle East. Israel as the "only democracy" in the Middle East comes right out of Zionist propaganda handbooks and is often used as a justification for its less than stellar human rights record, invoking the same kind of tired hyperbole of the "war on terrorism" whereby "they hate us for our freedoms". It has no place in an encyclopedia. Tiamut 09:24, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

I already demonstrated that Lebanon is not even a democracy according to the lebanon article. So that statement is correct. And the number of people in Palestine during the 19000's is irrelevant of course. It is the historical connection which is depicted and defined. Therefore the lead is perfectly fine. I demonstrated per Iran article that any contentious/political opinion of rival groups are irrelevant for leads. The lead of Iran doesn't mention Israel's position over the country, and the lead of Israel won't mention the PLO opinion over who's indigenous or not either. Amoruso 09:42, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

btw, you keep making false claims. Firstly about the army being one of the strongest, when in fact, it's not even close to being one of the strongest. Then now you claim Peters' book is fraudlent and false which is actually libel. Like Daniel Pipes said :

"The fact remains that the book presents a thesis that neither Professor Porath nor any other reviewer has so far succeeded in refuting. Miss Peters's central thesis is that a substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century. She supports this argument with an array of demographic statistics and contemporary accounts, the bulk of which have not been questioned by any reviewer, including Professor Porath."

There's no doubt the stats of arab immigration are correct. The problem was with the scholary level of the book, which is irrelevant because many actual scholars (Not jouranlits) expressed the same facts, so even mentioning joan peters as the apparent source here is fraudelent and untrue. Moving on, starting the political debate of whether Israel is correct about its historical connection or not, and whether they have adequate human rights is not relevant to the lead. Leave the lead as it is and respect this country's article. I demonstrated that none of these issues appear in countries which occupy other lands and regularly violate human rights even to the point of making people disappear and conflicting genocide against their own people : China, Cuba, Syria, Iran, not even the Palestinian articles which are heavily biased and create a history that never existed. The lead is not biased and it should stay as it is. Take political debates elsewhere or even attempt to insert then in the appropriate sections, but do not ruin the lead. Amoruso 09:49, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

changed indigenous line : clarifying that the Jewish people are indigenous to Eretz Israel. There's no doubt about that, simply because Judea was the cradle of the Jewish nation. Therefore, Jews are indigenous to Eretz Israel which is the historical term of the land. I think that settles it. It's also very important in the article (the history section) and therefore important in the lead per the argument that the lead is supposed to represent the article, which is certainly does. I object to this reasoning though - other countries' leads don't deal with many of the issues in the article but deal mostly with basic borders, population, short history, something about economy etc. Current lead deals with both issues in the articles and the usual matters dealt in leads. The other proposed changes have no consensus and are not relevant for the lead. As demonstrated , Lebanon is not yet a democracy and this is depicted in the leanon article, primarly because of the syrian influence and the current president. If changes are made, this bit can be updated. Btw, I read the link of Stephen R. Shalom and it's very one sided and not serious. For example quoting finkelstein but not pipes, quoting ben gurion in one instance as evidence for palestinian exodus, and so on. Amoruso 18:41, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Because there is no consensus on whether or not Lebanon constitutes a democracy, I have removed the reference to ISrael being the "only democracy" in the Middle east. I do not accept that it be described as such when there is clear evidence, cited above, that Lebanon is considered to be a parliamentary democracy as well. I believe the current formulation is the most neutral, factual and least POV. Additionally, as regards the issue of Jews being indigenous to Eretz Israel, I have added that the Israeli state defines this to be the case. There are many others who do not share this view. While some Jews are indigenous to the Middle East, like Sephardim and Mizharim, Ashkenazi Jews have arguably different origins as outlined by Arthur Koestler in his book on "The Thirteenth Tribe" which covers the Khazar Empire and the mass conversion of Tukic-Slavs to Judaism in the 10th century. Simply reverting to the old version after the provision of evidence that belies the claims made is unacceptable. This current edit is the simplest and most NPOV and I hope it meets everyone's liking. Tiamut 10:51, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
no, I disagree to these changes per my comments above about how leads are phrased and per lebanon article with regard to democracy. There's no doubt about Jews and Land of Israel. Discredited opinions like you mention have no place to influence lead of this article. There is a consensus of cultural, linguistic, and genetic evidence that the Ashkenazi Jewish population originated in the Middle East. Amoruso 11:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
I am sorry Amoruso, but just because you believe something to be true, doesn't it make it so. I have asked you for a citation for this and placed such a notation in the article itself. You have not provided one either here or there. I therefore attributed this claim to the state of Israel itself, and before that quoted a similar sentiment as contained in the declaration of Independence. None of these compromise positions has satisfied you.
The following information and arguments seriously debunk your as yet totally uncited and unsupported claim that Jews immigrating to Israel are "indigenous" to Eretz Israel:
1) "The indigenous Jews of Palestine also reacted negatively to Zionism. They did not see the need for a Jewish state in Palestine and did not want to exacerbate relations with the Arabs." John Quigley, "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice." [4] i.e., There is a distinction made in this historian's mind between indigenous Jews who lived in Palestine before Zionist settlers arrived and those who immigrated as part of the Zionist project to create a political entity called Israel. To call all Jews who immigrated thereafter is to mislead the reader and succumb to Zionist propaganda on the origins of Israel. This is clearly POV and unacceptable.
2) To insist that Jews are indigenous to Eretz Israel is to denude them of indigenous status in other countries and regions. It is highly offensive to many Jews whose national identity resides with their coutry of citizenship and origin. For example, consider this quote: "To these problems came traditional “ethnic” tensions between indigenous German Jews and Eastern European Jews (Ostjuden). Ironically, the former were the smallest part of the Jewish community whose constituents were primarily Eastern European displaced persons (DPs) who found themselves in Germany at the end of the war." [5] Note that the author distinguishes between Jews indigenous to Germany and those displaced by the war into Germany. This use of "indigenous" here directly contradicts your unqualified, uncited usage of the word indigenous in this article.
3) Since there are many Jews who oppose the notion of Zionism and reject citizenship there, the view of Jews being indigenous to Eretz Israel is clearly one that is put forward by the Israeli state, and shared by some of its citizens, but not necessarily all Jews worldwide. See: [6], [7]. These Jews would be offended by the notion that they are "indigenous" to a state whose very existence they view as morally, religiously, or otherwise offensive.
I am going to insist that you remove the word "indigenous" as suggested by Okedem below or change the wording to reflect that it is a view of the government or selected sectors of the Israeli population (obviously, Arab citizens of Israel who constitute almost 20% of the population of Israel do not share this view). If you don't do it, I will, and if you revert my edits again I will have to report your incivil behaviour to the admin. Thank you for your time. Tiamut 12:09, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Incivility ? Haven't seen any incivility. Your points here I'm afraid are irrlevant. There's no dispute among scholars that Jews are indigenous to Eretz Israel. It really doesn't matter if you're zionist or not, it's an undisputed fact. Citing websites of neutrei karta in your post makes little sense. This is an article about Israel and according to all wikipedia conventions. What's you're doing is simply disruptive behaviour. See jews article : Jews (Hebrew: יְהוּדִים, Yehudim; Yiddish: ייִדן, Yidn) are followers of Judaism or, more generally, members of the Jewish people (also known as the Jewish nation, or the Children of Israel), an ethno-religious group descended from the ancient Israelites and from converts who joined their religion. The term also includes those who have undergone an officially recognized formal process of religious conversion to Judaism. The current Jewish population is over 14.5 million, the majority of whom live in the United States and Israel. Nowhere did we say that Jews are indigenous only to Eretz Israel but there's no doubt and I already quoted you above that Jews are historically indigenous to the region. End of story. Try writing more to the point and not derailing to talks about neturei and largely discredited writers like you did before please. Amoruso 12:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
If it's an undisputed fact, provide me with a definitive source. To me, it's a claim that needs to be attributed. It is a controversial point that is rejected by many other people around the world, including Jews themselves as I pointed out above. You cannot merely claim it is undispouted and let it rest. Also, to keep insisting that Israel is the "only democracy" in the Middle east when Lebanon is also democracy and to refuse any suggested reformulations out of many that I have made to accomodate the differences of opinion on this matter is simply being intrasigent and POV pushing, as is the way you keep reverting my edits. Could you please give some ground here? I am trying very hard to see your point of view. I don't feel that you are at all trying to see mine. Tiamut 12:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
The current version is terrible. It really was better a while ago, before the whole "indigenous" thing. After your edit, it looks like this - "defines itself as the nation state of the Jewish people, indigenous to Eretz Yisrael " - Israel doesn't just "define itself" as the nation-state of the Jewish people, it is. I take it you mean the self-definition is for the indigenous part, but that's not what a reader sees now.
First off, I remember reading about finding genetic links between most population of Jews, Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and most Mizrahim, with the exception of Yemenis (who originated from a whole tribe converting to Judaism in Yemen), and Ethiopian Jews (the same). But it doesn't actually matter - the Jewish people has its traditions, language, religion - culture. Even if someone wasn't genetically from the first Jews in Eretz Israel, he's still Jewish, and still belongs to that nation, which IS indigenous to Eretz Israel.
The book you mentioned is just plain wrong - you can read about that right here: The Thirteenth Tribe.
Anyway, I really think we should just delete the "indigenous" bit and end it. It was only recently added, and really doesn't help. okedem 11:16, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Check Khazars. (And keep in mind that the Y-Chromosome is inherited through the males, while mitochondrial DNA is inherited through the female (the eggs)) Regards, Huldra 11:45, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
have you read the article you refer to ? [8] It's discredited there too. And everywhere. Version fine now. Btw, that proposal of khazars is so non factual here because that theory bases itself on the premise that the Jews are indigenous to Israel and certain elements of ashkensazi jews are khazar origin, most will say if true then a very minor minority (and then ashkenazi not even a majority of jews in Israel...) so it's simply not relevant. Amoruso 11:53, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
yes, I certainly have read it -I never voiced an opinion for or against the theory; I recommended the article because it seemed like a good summary of the arguments. Does that suprise you? Huldra 12:08, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


All of the indents got confused, so I'm writing my reply here.

First off, the Jewish People are indigenous to Eretz Israel. There's no real dispute of that fact. There's historical record of the Jewish kingdoms, records of the mass expulsions, and the Jews who remained in Israel/Palestine (the Romans changed its name to Syria Palestina to try and erase the Jews' connection to it, after the Jewish rebellions). There are records of the Jewish lineage throughout the ages, and genetic proof of the connection between different Jewish populations. It can be said, with a high level of certainty, that most Jews living today, are descended from the Jews of Eretz Israel, from the time of the Kingdom of Judea. The Jewish People did arise in the land of Israel, that's where their customs, religions, and language arose. So Israel is the birthplace of the Jews, as a people.

Several tribes or peoples have joined the Jewish People thoughout the years, like the Kuzari, a Yemeni tribe, and an Ethiopian tribe. Of course, individuals joined all the time, mainly through marriage.

To say that an individual person is indigenous to a region, is, of course, nonsense. A species, or a genus, is indigenous, not an individual. A jewish man, born in the US, is just a US citizen, an American. But he's also (whether he likes it or not), a member of the Jewish People, and his roots lie in Eretz Israel. It doesn't matter if he supports the actions of the State of Israel. Even Neturei Karta don't dispute the fact that Eretz Israel is the birthplace of the Jewish People. They just don't support the State of Israel (some of the ultra-orthodox jews believe that the kingdom of Israel should only be re-established after the coming of the Messiah).

I'd agree to remove that word, because it's not used in other articles, about other nation-states, and isn't very well defined. I do think it's true, though.

I also think that we could do without the "the only democracy" part - Lebanon is a sort of fledging democracy. I think its sectorial allocation of positions is anti-democratic (it's like saying the president of the US has to be an evangelist, the vice president methodist, and the speaker of the house a catholic), but still - they're trying, and most of the world seems to agree they're at least close to being a real democracy. Israel's democracy isn't dependent on its backwards neighbors, and there's no need for the comparison. okedem 14:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course it's a fact that the Jewish people originated in Eretz Israel. Also that there is historical connection between the Jews and this corner of the world; and that Jews at all times considered this corner of the world to be their spiritual home; and that they dreamed of one day returning there. But it's also a fact that Muslims dominated Palestine for some 1,400 years, and that at the end of the 19th century (just before the Zionist movement) there were only 15,000 Jews actually living there. So to put the word "indigenous" in the lead looks really terrible. Consider: Greeks originated in Asia Minor (i.e. modern Turkey). Turks have lived there for "only" a 1,000 years. At the end of the 19th century about one million Greeks still lived there. Does any editor think it's therefore good and proper to add in the lead of the Wikipedia article about Turkey that Greeks are indigenous to Turkey? :-)

Amoruso I understand you are person with convictions. And that's just as well; I am too. Everybody has a personal philosophy, for example I am a strong pacifist. But here we are editing an encyclopedia as part of a community, and we are bound to respect the objectives and rules of the community. One such objective is to work towards a neutral and balanced content. Another is to base our contributions on reliable references and not personal opinion. For example you do not consider Lebanon to be a democracy; fine. I suppose many other people may agree with you. But the international community at large including the UN the EU and the US does consider Lebanon a democracy (see references above). So the often made claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is not anymore true, and to include such statement in the encyclopedia would display bias (which is the opposite of neutral).

In any case I agree with the other editors above that neither the "indigenous" nor the "only democracy" claims should be made in the lead. I also object to the mention of "Eretz Israel"; that's a historical territorial concept that does not belong in the lead of the article about modern State of Israel in the same way that Alexander's empire does not belong in the lead of the article about modern Greece. Dianelos 17:41, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

For the "only democracy" issue, it is true that the northern part of Lebanon, the part not run by Hizbollah, is a democracy. However, (I think this is what Amoruso was trying to say), it is not a working democracy. Lebanon is as much of a democracy as the Gaza Strip. A terrorist organization, which has some government seats, is in open warfare with a majority. Fatah-Hamas is a similar situation. I propose that the wording is "the only free, working democracy in the Middle East." Possibly mentioning Lebanon by name as the other. Israel has many Muslim and Christian voters, whereas Lebanon's elections are not exactly "free."
As per the "Eretz Yisrael" issue, it is extremely valid in Medinat Yisrael. Many Israelis wish for the structure of Eretz to be brought back. The vast majority of anti-Zionist religious Jews are in favor of bringing back Eretz. It should be metioned that modern Israel and Eretz Yisrael share some of the same territory, and that Israel is a modern Jewish homeland set in the location of the first Jewish state, Eretz Yisrael. It is important to note that they are different, but to leave Eretz out would be inappropriate, as there is a connection between the two. Why do you think Israel is in the Middle East and not in Africa? --יהושועEric 18:58, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
"Eretz Israel" is a geographical term (though not extremely well defined). The orthodox jews want revival of the old jewish kingdom, which was situated in Eretz Israel. It's not the name of the kingdom. The kingdom of david and solomon is known as the Joint Kingdom of Israel, andthe latter kingdoms as the Kingdom of Israel, and the Kingdom of Judea. Eretz Israel is just the area. okedem 20:55, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
If you visit the Eretz Israel article you'll see a map describing an area far beyond Israel's borders. There is enough paranoia surrounding the creation of the Israeli state already; do you think it's a good idea to feed that paranoia at the very beginning of the article? In any case as per WP:Lead the lead is supposed to include the *main* points of the article; and "Eretz Israel" is not one of the main points of the article. In fact it's mentioned only once as a name for the new state that was rejected. Dianelos 07:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree, it belongs in the history part (because that is why the modern state of Israel was established in that particular location). okedem 08:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

changed the whole paragraph. indeed, indigenous is not the best word. Clarified it, and the history behind it. This is depicted in the history section. Mention of the land of israel is appropriate and other lands are also mentioned in different articles. Syria land and Greater syria is mentioned in the syria article lead for example. Amoruso 11:36, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

It still does not look good at all. Land of Israel points to the same Eretz Israel article, so the arguments stated above against using this concept in the lead still hold. The statement "With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish independence was renewed in the area." is undoubtedly true but in order to have WP:NPOV we should then balance this adding something like "The independence of the Palestinians, the people who lived in this area for the previous 1,400 years, was violated by the establishment of this State", which is also undoubtadly true. It seems to me Amoruso you try to include in the lead justification for the establishment of Israel. I think that's an important issue that maybe should be expounded in the article, but an unbiased mention of this issue in the lead would look really terrible. Finally you have kept the "Israel is the Middle East's only stable parliamentary democracy." bit, even though various editors above have demonstrated to you that this is biased. Incidentally the Middle East also includes Turkey, and you don't want to argue that Turkey is not a stable democracy. So I am removing this bit. It really looks more like propaganda than like a "concise introduction" as per WP:Lead.

In order not to start another of the irritating edit wars, here is the lead I would like to suggest (adding good references of course):

Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help•info); Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and the Jordan and the West Bank in the east, and Egypt in the south-west. It has a population of over six million people, in an area of around 21,000 square kilometres (8,000 square miles).
Israel is the world's only Jewish state, though its population includes citizens from many ethnic and religious backgrounds. It was established in 1948 as the result of the Zionist movement and was recognized by the United Nations and by the international community at large, but not by its Arab neighbors. Israel had to fight five major wars against them to maintain its existence, and there is still no peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
Israel has a technologically advanced economy and is ranked 23rd on the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index. Its military force is ranks within the 10 most powerful in the world. It is a parliamentary democracy and enjoys a vibrant cultural life and free press.

The above represents my frank effort to satisfy WP:Lead and WP:NPOV in this contentious article. Some comments:

  • All the maps in the world I know show that Israel on the east borders with the West Bank too. For example see CIA factbook's map here. Even the this 2005 official Israeli document, while stating that the West Bank is subject to agreements between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, includes a map that clearly places the West Bank outside of Israel. I find the fact that the article about Israel in Wikipedia displays a map where the entire West Bank is shown as part of Israel to be hair-raisingly improper. It's also self-contradictory as the area, population, demographics, economy, and other info present in the article exclude the West Bank. Even the claim that Israel is a democracy is not compatible with the West Bank forming part of Israel.
  • The numbers about Israel's area and population are taken from the CIA factbook and the UN. Now Israel's position is different, as is detailed in the article. Nevertheless I think the internationally recognized numbers should be in the lead, unless an editor would like to add in the lead the information that Israel disagrees with the international community about these numbers.
  • The bit about the Jews maintaining a connection with this land throughout the diaspora is significant but cannot be included in the lead without balancing this by mentioning the fact that Muslims were actually living there as the majority and the authority for the previous 1,400 years. So I think let's best leave this bit out.
  • I think there are other significant pieces of information that should be in the lead (because they are notable and establish context as per WP:Lead), such as that Israel occupies the West Bank for some 40 years now and that it effectively governs over the lives of some 2.4 million Palestinians on military law - but maybe it's not a good idea to include them.
  • I removed the pointer to the Israelis article, because a) that article appears biased (it does not include a photo of Palestinians even though they constitute 15% of the citizenship of Israel), and b) the interested reader can find information about Israel's ethnic and religious backgrounds further down in section 7.1 of the Israel article.

Dianelos 09:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. This sentence - "The independence of the Palestinians, the people who lived in this area for the previous 1,400 years, was violated by the establishment of this State" - is actually undoubtebly false, as there never was "palestinian independence". The only sovereign entities in recorded history in that region were the Jewish kingdoms, and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Israel's establishment was in accordance with the UN resolution, which, had the Arabs accepted it, would have given them independence for the first time. But they chose to decline.
  2. After the wars part, it should be mentioned that two Arab nations have recognized Israel, and signed peace treaties with it - Jordan and Egypt.
  3. Again I say, the military's strength should not be mentioned in the lead - is there any other country for which it is mentioned like that?
  4. What would be great is a map showing the various regions of PA control - A, B, and C territoies. Certainly, the West Bank should be clearly marked as seperate from Israel.
  5. Population - This has nothing to do with international recognition. The CIA factbook number is just plain outdated. Israel now has over 7 million people, and that's a fact.
  6. The areas have not changed, and there's no disagreement between Israel and the CIA on that. If you want to be accurate, you'd have to include at least three numbers - Israel proper, areas under Isreali law (Israel proper+east Jerusalem+Golan), area of the west bank (under Israeli military control, but not Israeli law).
  7. The Israelis article, in fact, has a picture with this caption: "Israeli Bedouin soldiers chat with Arab civilians in Galilee, 1978". So I guess you missed that one. okedem 10:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
I support Danielos proposal for a rewrite of the lead and agree with Okedem that the peace treaties with Jordan and Egypt should also mentioned thereafter. The map too should absolutely be changed (I didn't even notice it before, thanks for pointing that out Danielos). As for the population issue, it is true that Israel's population according to the latest CBS stats are closer to 7 million, but they are not over 7 million as it states in the article currently. I prefer that we include the exact numbers with a breakdown that differentiates between settlers in the West Bank, Golan and East Jerusalem (the latter two are annexed by Israel but considered occupied under international law). Ths issue of the occupation should be mentioned in the lead, otherwise people do not understand why Israel has fought wars with its Arab neighbours. I would also avoid charaterizing those wars, as wars of survival since it's speculative. Israel lost the last war against Hizbullah, i.e., it achieved none of its stated objectives and it did not fall apart, putting an end to Ben Gurion's adage about the war that Israel's loses will be its last. It's still around now, isn't it? Tiamut 10:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Hold on - what's the problem with the maps? Both of them show the disputed areas (Gaza, West Bank and the Golan) in a different color than Israel's, and the line between them is clearly drawn.
The number in the document I linked to was 6,990,700, and it was correct for 1/1/2006. It's been 9 months since then - the number has most centainly grown to over seven million by now - Israel has positive population growth. Why not just "has a population of seven million..."? We have no need for the "over" bit. I don't think there's a point to saying the number includes people in the west bank of wherever. The reader can read the "demographics" section for that - the number is just meant to give a first impression of the country's population size, not detailed information.
The current occupation is not the reason for the wars! 1948 certainly had nothing to do with it, neither did Kadesh (1956). In 1967 Israeli first occupied that territory, so it's certainly not the cause. In 1973 Egypt and Syria wanted to get rid of Israel once and for all, not just to get back the occupied territores. 1982 was because of attacks from Lebanon, mainly by Palestinian, so it could be claimed the occupation caused it.
The occupation can be mentioned, as it's an almost unique situation, and has had a huge effect on Israel's character and history.
I don't know if Israel lost the war against Hizbollah. It certainly didn't win, though. Some of the wars weren't necessary for survival, like 1982 - it was a serious mistake on Israel's part.
okedem 11:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy with the current lead and won't support any changes. Military power is a wrong info and doesn't belong in a lead of a country. Israel's history as in Jewish people in Eretz Israel is a very important feature in the article - history section - and understanding Israel. It's a common used note used in country leads and it should stay. Turkey is not in the middle east - see Turkey categories and article, no mention of it. The numbers of the population and size are a good compromise. the map doesn't show what you say it does (the green map ? doesn't include the west bank actually at all). We should also avoid getting political wars into the leads. There is no need of mentioning Palestinians/Muslims living in Palestine of coure. This is an article about Israel. No mention of Jews exists in Arab articles either. Please try to understand this is an article about Israel and its history, symbols, beliefs. Amoruso 11:21, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

The facts are that Israel's population includes 1.2 million Palestinians among its enfranchised citizenry, it controls the lives of millions of other non-citizen Palestinians living under an Israeli military occupation, and further impacts the lives of millions of others who are refugees as a direct result of the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. Inclusion of a mention of Palestinians therefore seems extremely relevant to the lead. To not include mention of them would be to deny present-day and historical realities that largely define how Israel interacts with its neighbours and the world. The lead as is remains extremely POV and frankly uninformative for those readers who are coming to the article no doubt in part to understand what is so contentious about Israel's existence to its opponents. This seems an encyclopedic failure and potentially explains why the article was delisted from inclusion in the Wikipedia CD series. Let's strive to be honest here, rather than trying to win over adherents to our respective points of view in this neverending conflict by glossing over certain uncomfortable facts. Tiamut 12:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Israel's population btw is 7,026,000, see info box. I ask again for users to respect the history of Israel and the Jewish people, the lead is fine, and the above proposals made by Dainelos are IMO pure WP:POV of anti Israel sentiments and I will not support any of them. I don't go around inserting anti Syria, Jordan, Egypt infos in their lead for POV reasons. It's not an article about a conflict, it's an article about a country. A country which has its culture, history and meaning, and this is depicted in the lead, and should stay. Amoruso 11:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I have no problem with ADDING info as in the cultural life proposal and perhaps the Arab Israeli wars as long as it's neutral and short. But not to delete current relevant info from lead. The history and Jewish connection to Israel is a most important part of the lead. btw, simply repeating WP:LEAD doesn't mean much... the parts included are very much in accordance with WP:LEAD and with other leads of countries like previously shown. Amoruso 11:33, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

okedem, about the points you make above:

  1. I don't want to start a big debate on this issue, as I believe none of these two sentences should be included in the lead. Still "Palestine" is the name used for this geographical area since Roman times, and "Palestinians" is the generic name of the people who lived there. For some 1,600 years before the Zionist movement the vast majority of Palestinians were Muslims living under Islamic authorities, and did not consider themselves under military occupation. Today millions of Palestinians do. So I think the statement above is defendable. Now if one wants to be very strict one could argue that the statement "With the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Jewish independence was renewed in the area." is not true either; after all in 1700 CE only about 7,000 Jews lived in Palestine, maybe 2% of the population. I mean when a people move back to a geographical area it's a stretch to say that this event represents "the renewal of independence". In Greek history we have renewed our independence at the beginning of the 17th century, but we were still here, and, incidentally we certainly did not renew that independence everywhere we have lived when Greece was a great power, nor does any reasonable person claim that we should try - or that we have the right to try - to accomplish that. Anyway I think it's best not to mention in the lead statements to the effect of whether the establishment of the State of Israel was justified or not; the fact is that the State of Israel was established and it is here to stay. Readers who are interested in the question of justice can look in the article about the Arab-Israeli conflict or Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pointers to which are already in the article.
  2. Agreed - I think that's significant enough.
  3. Maybe not, but then again there is no other country where military strength has been such a decisive and relevant factor.
  4. I don't know how much in PA's control the A,B,C areas are, but such information certainly is more appropriate in the article about Palestinians or the West Bank. Anyway, if you feel that's relevant information in this article too, let's include it.
  5. The CIA factbook is printed yearly and is widely regarded as very reliable. But I am game. Do you know of other reliable references according to which Israel's population is larger than 7 million?
  6. Indeed, the article includes sufficient detail about the various numbers about Israel's area. Still in the lead we should mention the internationally recognized numbers I think. But, again, if you wish to add the details in the lead, I don't object. I'd rather have more precise information in the lead than ambiguous or misleading information.
  7. I did miss it. :-) But did you notice that "Galilee" is ambiguous? If that photo was taken in the Golan Heights then the Arab civilians depicted in that photo are probably not Israeli citizens. Dianelos 15:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Tiamut, my understanding is that the CBS stats include the Israeli citizens in settlements outside of Israel proper as recognized by the international community. People who don't live in their country normally do not count as part of their country's population. I don't know; it also seems reasonable to include the numbers of CBS in the article. Maybe it would be most according to WP:NPOV to include two sets of numbers: population/area according to the international community and population/area according to Israel. - I tentatively agree to find a way to mention the issue of occupation in the lead; it certainly is a major point. - As for the expression "war of survival", the '48, '67 and '73 wars were clearly wars of survival. Anyway maybe it would be an improvement to change the relevant phrase to "... Israel had to fight several major wars against them to maintain its existence" Dianelos 16:01, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Amoruso, above I pointed to three references according to which the Israeli military is one of the strongest in the world, and at least another editor agrees that this information belongs in the lead. The history of the State of Israel is not the history of Jews in Eretz Israel. Turkey does belong to the Middle East; it would save some time if you did some research before insisting on your claims, or at least if you would read the references other editors contribute. As for the area and population of Israel the annexations announced by Israel are not recognized as valid by any international or national body, including not by the US; anyway above I propose that we should include the two sets of numbers here clarifying that the first set is according to the international community and the second according to Israel. The map I refer to is the "Map of Israel" in the geography section here; as you see it does include the West Bank as part of Israel. I don't see why you think the Palestinians should not be mentioned in this article; for example the article about the United States of America speaks of the Native Americans, the article about Turkey speaks of the Greeks, and of course the article about Israel should and does speak of the Palestinians. The fact that this article is about Israel, its history, etc., does not imply that only Israel's positions should be included in it. Dianelos 16:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

1. The statement "...in 1948, Jewish independence was renewed..." in completely correct - There was an independent Jewish kingdom in Israel many years ago, then it was conquered (by several empires), then the Jews were once again independent for a short period (after the Jewish rebellion against the romans). It is entirely factual. Even if there were no Jews at all before the zionist movement, the sentence would still be correct. The renewal of independence has nothing to do with people moving back to a geographical area, it's about self-rule. For that very reason the term "palestinian independence" has no merit, as the last time anyone was independent there was at the time of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, and never an independent arab state. Before the zionist movement even the concept of a "palestinian people" barely existed, and there was no talk of independence for that region.
3. Really? No other country? What about the US? Or China (long time occupier of Tibet)? Or India and Pakistan? Iran and Iraq? North and South Korea? Oh, military strength has played a major role in the recent histories of so many countries.
5. I don't understand the problem. Why is an american intelligence agency a better source than the country's statistics bureau? BTW, the CIA data says it includes the settlers in the West bank and others.
7. The Galilee is, in fact, very well defined. The Golan is not a part of the Galilee. It's cleary stated in the article about the Galilee. The Galilee ends at the Jordan valley and the Kinneret, which seperate it from the Golan. Anyway, the photo is a "double feature" - you've got Beduin soldiers and Arab civilians - so anyway - you've got arabs there.
8. The maps in the geography section have a different color for the west bank, gaza, and the golan, and the border is marked - what more do you want? okedem 16:31, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I support Okedem's wise, articulate and researched comments. Of course the State of Israel is connected to the Land of Israel, it is the root of the history of the very core of its existence. Every country has a basic history in its lead, and this is according to WP:LEAD a summary of the ancient history of Israel and its connection to the modern state depicted in the article. I added a ref for Turkey. You may read the Turkey + Middle East articles before making such claims again please. It's probably theoretically possible to include Turkey in a middle east definition but it's not in any official defitinion and it's commonly not regarded as part of the middle east. In fact, Turkey is in the middle east like Israell is in Europe. The ref shows the basic definition and now there can be no confusion either. As for military power, sorry I must have missed your refs. Anyway , Israel numbers 26th military power in the world in this researched analysis http://www.globalfirepower.com/country_detail.asp?country_id=23 . Do any of the 25 first countries have such indications, I think not in general, maybe the U.S ? What IS true is this part in the IDF section : The IDF is one of the best funded military forces in the Middle East (15th in the world actually) and ranks among the most battle-trained armed forces in the world, having been involved in five major wars and numerous border conflicts. This no doubt belongs in an IDF lead. Does it belong in the Israel lead ? probably NOT. other opinions can be heard. I don't see any mention of Greeks in Turkey lead. Amoruso 18:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

okedem as per your points:

1. We have two phrases "... in 1948 Jewish independence was renewed." and "... in 1948 Palestinian independence was violated." Now, if you want to defer to popular feeling both sentences are true; if you want to be logically strict then both statements are highly dubious. After all there is no other case in human history where a people moving back into an area after a 1,400 years (or is it 1,800 years?) hiatus were "renewing their independence"; so to use these words is a case of special pleading. I really don't think it's a good idea to use such questionable not to mention polemical language in the lead of this article.
3. I don't think any of the countries you state compare to Israel in this regard. Israel had to literally fight several major wars just to maintain its existence. There is really no comparison.
5. I don't think that the CIA is better sourced than Israel's CBS. But it certainly is more neutral and this is the point here. (And if they count the settlers beyond Israel's borders as part of Israel's population then this should be mentioned in the article I think.)
7. If you read the Galilee article in Wikipedia you'll see that it denotes a historical area the extent of which is not clear. You'll notice there is no modern map in this article, but only a map from 50 CE (!) and this one does include the Golan Heights - so that picture's caption is ambiguous. My point stands: it’s not clear that the “Arab civilians” in that picture are Arab Israeli citizens. But even if they are it’s not a representative picture for Israel’s largest minority, don’t you agree?
8 The difference of coloring between the West Bank and Israel is completely imperceptible (I did not notice it until you mentioned this); in any case the clearly contrasting colors in the original map were modified and also text present in the original map was erased. This map is an altered version of the original map taken from the CIA world factbook and as such clearly violates WP:No original research. I have uploaded the real map. Dianelos 18:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
1,3,5,7 already debunked. number 8 - it doesn't matter. the map is NPOV and shows the line/differnet colors. anyone can make any map he wants, it's not WP:OR. Amoruso 18:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
1. What popular feeling? What are you talking about? You can't talk about Palestinian independence, because they never had any. I'm really repeating myself here, but it seems I must. The Arabs in Palestine had never been independent. The 1947 partition plan gave them a chance for that, which they refused, and chose to try and control the whole area. It's that simple. About the Jews - indeed it's a special case, but that doesn't make the claim false. The Jews used to be independent in Palestine (Israel, as it was called back then), and in 1948 they became independent there again. That's called "renew".
3. What about France, then? Lots of wars. Germany? Tried to take over the world. Japan, too.
5. I don't think there's a question of neutrality here. It's just the number of people living there, nothing more. It doesn't really matter, and there's no reason for a country to lie on that subject.
7. This whole point is absolutely absurd:
7a. Obviously, you don't know where the Golan actually is. The article itself clearly states: "from the Jordan Valley on the east" - The Jordan valley is what seperates the Golan from the Galilee. "Its eastern border is the Sea of Galilee and the mountains of the Golan Heights" - That's as clear as it gets. Also, even the map you mention shows the Galilee ends at the Jordan river, and doesn't include the Golan. Go read the article Golan Heights.
7b. The entire Israelis article has 5 pictures, one of the declaration of independence, one of orthodox jews, one of stamps, the one we talked about, and one of 2 people on the street. How many pictures of arabs do you want, exactly?
7c. And how do you know the "Israelis on the street" picture doesn't show Arabs? They don't all walk around in traditional robes, you know (or perhaps you don't).
I can add that I inserted the israelis on the streets from wikimedia commons. For years the only picture was Bedouin soldiers and Arabs citizens. Amoruso 21:00, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
7d. The Israelis article isn't a census, and doesn't actually need a picture of every citizen, or even a sample of every group (that would be a whole lot, by the way, as Israel is extremely diverse).
7e. The picture we talked about show Beduin soldiers - are they not Arab enough for you?
8. If you can't see the difference in colors, that's a problem with your screen, or your eyesight, and nothing more. The original map from the CIA site shows the disputed territories in the same color as the neighboring countries, and that's highly misleading. Israel does control these territories, and that should be reflected in the map (regardless of your opinions concerning the legality of that control). Since it's not internationally recognized, it's not in the same color as Israel, and the border is clearly marked. If you'd like to make the colors more distinct, go ahead. BTW, making a map has nothing to do with original research. okedem 19:55, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Amoruso, contrary to what you appear to believe in the WP article about Middle East Turkey is clearly included - see the map, Turkey is even included in the smaller "traditional Middle East". Webster’s dictionary defines the Middle East thus “The area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to North Africa..” [9]. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines the Middle East as “the lands around the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea” and then mentions Turkey by name [10]. The encyclopedia Encarta states “Middle East: region stretching from Egypt to Iran: the region stretching from the eastern Mediterranean to the western side of the Indian subcontinent, including Egypt, the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Iraq” [11]. The CIA factbook also includes Turkey in the Middle East [12]. The Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Texas has a section on Turkey [13]. Google Directory agrees [14]. Turks apparently agree too, one of the best universities in Turkey is the Middle East Technical University in Ankara. I could go on and on. Do you actually have any reference at all that states that Turkey does *not* belong to the Middle East? – Now it’s true that one often reads the phrase “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” but I am afraid it’s propaganda, as it is patently false. It’s normal to encounter propaganda in issues that surround military conflict, but as Wikipedia editors we should be careful not to fall for it. So I am removing this claim from the article. Dianelos 18:28, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I already included a ref so there can be no conufsion. There's also no question that Turkey is not a part of the middle east, largely probably because it being a part of Europe....

From the middle east article :

Most Western definitions of the "Middle East" — in both established reference books and common usage — define the region as 'nations in Southwest Asia, from Iran to Egypt'. Egypt, with its Sinai Peninsula in Asia, is often considered part of the 'Middle East', although most of the country lies geographically in North Africa. North African nations without Asian links, such as Libya, Tunisia and Algeria, are increasingly being called North African — as opposed to Middle Eastern (Iran to Egypt-Asia) — by international media outlets. However, North African countries can also be considered part of the middle east.

One widely used definition of "Middle East" is that of the airline industry, maintained by the IATA standards organization. This definition — as of early 2006 — includes Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestinian territories, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. [1] This definition is used in world-wide airfare and tax calculations for passengers and cargo.

and....

Geography

Further information: Geography of Asia

Middle East defines a cultural area, so it does not have precise borders. The most common and highly arbitrary definition includes: Bahrain, Cyprus, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Palestinian Territories. Iran is often the eastern border, but Afghanistan is also occasionally included because of their close relationship (ethnically and religiously) to the larger group of Iranian peoples as well as historical connections to the Middle East including being part of the various empires that have spanned the region such as those of the Persians and Arabs among others. Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and western-Pakistan (Balochistan and North West Frontier Province) share close cultural, linguistic, and historical ties with Iran and are also part of the Iranian plateau, whereas Iran's relationship with Arab states is based more upon religion and geographic proximity. Also the Kurds, another group of Iranic linguistic extraction, are the smallest ethnic group in the Middle East without their own state like some other ethnic groups in the region.

btw1, with the rise of Islam in Turkey, it's not exactly a stable democracy either and until 1982 was under military rule, but that's beside the point. Amoruso 18:37, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

btw2, even Palestinians agree with it, and after their election said they are 2nd democracy in the middle east : [15]. of course this is true but they're not stable yet. I'll emphasise the point of the ref i included already to show why i included it. Amoruso 18:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

btw3, cia factbook doesn't consider turkey a part of the middle east, and IATA is a common used definition. [16] it's ambiguous term that's why we have a ref. Amoruso 07:03, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Amoruso, Wikipedia articles do not count as sources for other Wikipedia articles, see WP:RS ("Wikipedia cannot cite itself as a source"). Even so let me point out that the Wikipedia article on the Middle East expressively puts Turkey within the "traditional Middle East". What counts in Wikipedia are external and reliable sources. As I demonstrated above Webster's Dictionary, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the encyclopedia Encarta, and the map in the CIA factbook all include Turkey in the Middle East. But I found more sources from reference books: The American Heritage Dictionary defines Middle East as the "area comprising the countries of southwest Asia and northeast Africa." [17]. The encyclopedia of Columbia University Press expressively puts Turkey in the Middle East: "Middle East, term traditionally applied by western Europeans to the countries of SW Asia and NE Africa lying W of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Thus defined it includes Cyprus, the Asian part of Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, the countries of the Arabian peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait), and Egypt and Libya"[18]. As does this [this modern reference book] which says "Region in western Asia and northeast Africa that includes the nations on the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey"[19]. Of course a country can belong to various geographical regions (e.g. Egypt, Cyprus, Russia to mention just three examples), so Turkey can quite properly belong to Europe, to Asia, and to the Middle East. Now, against all the mainstream references above you quote one page in IATA's website here which indeed does not put Turkey in their list of Middle East countries (and does put Sudan, which is rarely mentioned as a Middle Eastern country). I find this page rather obscure as it is buried within IATA's page about cargo services called CargoIS, and is apparently its only sub-page detailing a geographical region, which is strange enough (as if there were no other geographical regions in the world). Actually it's not even that as no page in IATA's site actually links to that Middle East page, i.e. one cannot actually arrive at that page by clicking on any link in IATA's site. In fact the only site in the world that links to that page is Wikipedia. I find all that very strange indeed; I think I'll send IATA an email about this.

In any case even though IATA is the well-known international organization that regulates the airline business their site has no standing as a reference source. You claim otherwise writing ("IATA is a common used definition") and substantiate your claim citing an article by BellaOnLine.com. Well, BellaOnLine is not really a well known site and it's certainly not authoritative (have a look at its main page). Surely if as you claim "IATA's was the common definition" then you would be able to find better references than one article in BellaOnLine. Anyway the BellaOnLine article you cite makes clear that Turkey is sometimes considered part of the Middle East, contradicting your claim above that "There's also no question that Turkey is not a part of the middle east". So what gives?

Finally I consider the mention of Israel being the only "stable" democracy to be WP:Weasel words not to mention unsourced. After all there are serious people who question the stability of Israel's democracy too. For example in this eye-opening study the Israeli Democracy Institute finds that "Over the last few years there has been a significant decline in the Jewish population's support of democratic norms on all levels". In any case the least we as Wikipedia editors can do and are expected to do is to try and keep propaganda and individual editors' personal opinion out of the encyclopedia articles.

In short - if Turkey is considered by almost all sources to belong in the Middle East and to be a democracy, and if almost all sources including the US and the UN also consider Lebanon a democracy, then the statement in the lead to the effect that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East is propaganda. I will remove it again and will consider its unsourced re-insertion an act of vandalism. Dianelos 10:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

You may consider it anyway you want but you'll be wrong. I appraoched your concerns on the middle east page where many references were brought to this assertion :Many (previously written "most") Western definitions of the "Middle East" — in both established reference books and common usage — define the region as 'nations in Southwest Asia, from Iran to Egypt' [1] Egypt, with its Sinai Peninsula in Asia, is often considered part of the 'Middle East', although most of the country lies geographically in North Africa.

then, I also referred you to a source debunking your claim about IATA right here [20] which explains that the two primary sources to define the middle east are IATA and the CIA world factbook - both of them do not define Turkey to be a part of the middle east. This can be reffed in the article as well. Another anaylis by Carol J. Riphenburg comes to the same conclusion [21] and Amnesty also sees it this way [22]. So no, turkey isn't in the middle east or rather it doesn't have to be per the article. I remind you the word "stable" was added because you insisted that Lebanon is a democracy, which it isn't . Also, there's no problem to link to wiki articles if those wiki articles are sourced themselves, as was in this case. Amoruso 10:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In short what you demonsrated Dainelos is that Turkey is included in the middle east by the definition of some. Spain can also be included in such a definition btw. This is fine. But there are definitive defintions who do not consider Turkey to be in the middle east, as shown. The primary source of the U.S government for example. Just an example. If the ref bothers you still, one can even list all the middle eastern countries in question in the footnote. I think that's redundant as one can simply press the link. Anyway you look at it, it's a huge group of countries that are in the direct region of Israel and are not democratic. And Israel is very stable democracy as proven over 50+ years of unchanged basic type of regime. So this should stay of course. Amoruso 10:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

So you are saying that the Middle East is an ambiguous geographical area which may include Turkey or may not. Above you say that according to some definitions it may even include Spain. So be it. If "Middle East" is an ambiguous geographical area, then the statement "Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East" is ambiguous too. Actually it's ambiguous twice over as there is no neutral definition of what a "stable democracy" is (not to mention that Spain is a stable democracy too ;-) But ambiguous statements, and, frankly, statements that smack of propaganda, do not belong to an encyclopedia. Observe Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts, see the official Wikipedia policy WP:NPOV. So I am removing this ambiguous and unsourced statement again. Please refrain from re-inserting it. Dianelos 19:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
First of all, it has nothing to do with WP:NPOV. Please don't link to irrelevant policies,, it's wikilawyering and frowned upon. Secondly, the fact it is ambiguous doesn't mean it can't be defined per the reference. I see your consistent reversion of this sourced material as disruptive personally. Amoruso 19:41, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
The statement "Wikipedia is devoted to stating facts" is found in WP:NPOV, so above I was just documenting my claim pointing at official policy. Can you document your claim that even if something is ambiguous it can be included in the lead? Finally, can you explain what in your references substantiates the statement "Israel is the only stable democracy in the Middle East"? Your first reference is an obscure and unlinked page that has something to do with IATA's cargo services, the second documents that Amnesty International lists Turkey in Europe, and the third is a claim about the CIA factbook without any specific reference at all. Dianelos 20:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
That is brilliant. I've changed the whole ref and removed the stable nonsense to avoid disputes and maintain clarity and accuracy. Amoruso 04:10, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Chabuk, as you can see in that page Freedom House considers Turkey to be an electoral democracy. And Turkey is considered by all the major reference sources to be in the Middle East (as well as in Europe and in Asia; after all one country can belong to various geographical regions). The major reference sources I refer to are: Webster's dictionary, the American Heritage Dictionary, the Encyclopedia Britannica, the encyclopedia Encarta, the Columbia University Press encyclopedia, the CIA factbook, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies of the University of Texas, Google maps, as well as "The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know". See above for specific links that allow you to check all these references. Against that we have one obscure IATA webpage that has something to do with cargo services, and references about how Amnesty International and Freedom House divides the world in regions - obviously they don't want to repeat Turkey three times so they classify Turkey in the region that Turkey prefers, namely in Europe. We also have references to a few writers pointing out that Turkey is sometimes but not always included in the Middle East. So, clearly, Turkey can and is widely regarded as part of the Middle East and Turkey is an electoral democracy, so the claim that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East" is false. What's more Lebanon too is now regarded as a democracy by the international community (the UN, the US and the EU among others; see above for specific references). I understand that Israel is proud of its democracy and I think rightly so, but let's drop the claim that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, for it's a loser.
Amoruso, if you think important to put in the lead something that distinguishes Israel in the Middle East, why not put something that you can substantiate with good references, perhaps that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is judged by Freedom House to be Free? This is a true claim (because Turkey too is not considered Free by Freedom House). This claim is already present in the Human Rights section, but I wouldn't mind see it repeated in the lead. It's not quite according to Wikipedia policy but maybe it's fair to try to include in the lead some of the better things that can be said about a country. Dianelos 09:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I just noticed you had already done what I suggested above! I will add the significant (and easy to reference) fact that Israel has a free press. Nevertheless I feel it is appropriate to mention that the statement about Israel being the only country in the Middle East with full political and civil rights (incidentally a slight hyperbole; Israel's qualification is "2" and not "1") is Freedom House's point of view. I think that should be explicitly mentioned because that organization even though widely cited is considered by some to have a right-wing leaning; see the Wikipedia article for specifics. I personally question their objectivity. I was surprised that they now have Russia as "not free" (and not "partly free" that would surely be more reasonable) while they have Namibia as fully "free" with a civil rights qualification of "2" just like Israel (see Freedom House Namibia's page). But contrast this to the US Department of State evaluation of Namibia's respect of human rights US State Namibia here and the long list of very serious violations that is documented there. Dianelos 10:25, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I feel it wouldn't be appropriate and further clog up the lead and also mislead. Obviously this is a wide view in the world, it's not just according to Freedom house. The ref is there for anyone to see. In fact, if you push on this, we might just go with the only democracy version which is accepted by many of the users ;) This version is the best I believe. Amoruso 11:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, Israel has the exact same rating as Japan and Greece, so that's not so bad.
How is the lead now? Are you okay with it, or are there any other changes you'd like to make? (and please, let's discuss them before making them). okedem 11:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Amoruso has changed the lead again without discussing it. Accordingly, I have removed the entire "only democracy" related sentence. There is no consensus on its factual accuracy (re: the turkey lebanon debate above). The lead should be simple and non-controversial. Noting that Israel is a parliamentary democracy should be enough. Quantifying its relationship vis-a-via other states in that regard goes beyond the scope of the lead considering the many different viewpoints on that subject. If it is to be discussed further on in the article than we can give proper space to the various viewpoints on the issue. If it is put back in, I am going to have to call for arbitration on this entire issue. It is not fair to force one's own personal viewpoint on others through simple intransigence. User:Tiamut 12:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Dear unsigned members acting on WP:AGF and wanting to call for arbitration :) , you are behind the discussion. We have used a Freedom House source and the article didn't say only democracy anymore (not that it was wrong nor controversial). Thank you anyway. Amoruso 13:06, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Amoruso, It's me Tiamut that was the unsigned author. I added my name after realizing that I had been accidentally logged out. I am not "behind the discussion," my friend. If you notice, my comment said the "'only democracy' related" sentence, and by that I meant the current refomulation that includes talk of Israel being the "only" country in the Middle East with "comprehensive political rights". That you changed the wording does not change the fact that this is a contentious point that more than one editor disagrees with. As discussed earlier, both Turkey and Lebanon are considered by many to be in the Middle East and to be a democracy, respectively. Additionally, your new reformulation is even more contentious than the last since many people do not believe that all of Israel's citizens enjoy comprehensive political rights there. (As a non-Jewish citizen of that country, I have first-hand experience with the limitations on my rights stemming from my not being Jewish.) Please either remove the sentence yourself or be aware that this is going to move into a dispute resolution process. Hasty editing of other people's work and the refusal to consider other points of view is heavy-handed POV pushing. The sentence is contentious and should be removed because there is no space to adequately discuss the intricacies of the different viewpoints in the lead. Thank you. Tiamut 13:35, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think Tiamut is basically right here, and I am removing the statement to the effect that "Israel is the only country..". Let's cool down and see if we can straighten this out ourselves, but I agree we will go to arbitration if contentious statements that smack of propaganda stay in the lead. And there is the far more serious matter about Israel's borders and altered map which we must also look into. Dianelos 16:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
I would very much like to hear how your rights are being limited (really). okedem 13:53, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
It's hard to imagine one would seriously compare Turkey or Lebanon's "democracies" to that in Israel. In any event, the lead now refers to freedom and civil rights, which is a different, and documented, fact. Jayjg (talk) 17:26, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Jayig, there is no real difference between this formulation ("only country in the Middle East with comprehensive political rights and civil liberties") and the last one. Lebanon, Turkey, and Morocco can be said to have comparable levels of freedom. It's a very subjective gauge I think and one right-wing thinktank's opinion is not really that relevant to a NPOV lead. If you will consider an addition of the contrary view that summarizes the following sentiment; "We can go deeper into this problem of democracy in Israel. The abrupt passage in 1948 without any transition from Jewish settlement organizations to a state structure made it very hard for Israel to adopt “norms of governance.” Norms of governance are by definition different from the norms that political-military organizations use, which are not bound by any clearly defined code of laws. .... Fifty years after independence, the behavior of the State of Israel and its political class still reveals a certain slippage between the state, the ruling parties and the politicians, and between a binding legal framework and interests that cannot be contained in that framework. Corruption is one example, of course. But there are also political and military practices that violate the law but the executive branch considers necessary, such as the use of torture and extrajudicial executions." [24] There are a wide variety of views on this subject that stand in direct contradiction to one another, so I move that due to the contentious nature of making such quantifying and comparative claims in the lead that we leave it out of the lead and discuss it in the main article instead. Tiamut 20:20, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
That Arab citizens of Israel are discriminated against is very well documented. Among Israeli sources we have A Status Report – Equality for Arab Citizens of Israel by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (currently hacked), this report on human rights of a joint project of the Knesset and the Israeli American Jewish Forum, and the findings of the Or comission. Among the international sources we have the Israel country report on human rights of the United States Department of State, this report on the education of Arab Israeli children by the Human Rights Watch and the 2006 Israel country report by Freedom House. As we have discussed Freedom House lately here are some examples of discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel it documents:
  • ..by law, Israel strips Arabs of their Jerusalem residency if they remain outside the city for more than three months.
  • ..the law does not allow civil marriages, which prevents Jews and non-Jews from marrying.
  • In 2003, an independent commission issued its findings of a public inquiry into the shooting deaths of 13 Arab-Israelis by police in October 2000. The police opened fire on rioters demonstrating in support of the Palestinian uprising. The report identified discrimination against Israel's Arab minority as the primary cause of the riots and led to the initiation of criminal investigations of several of the police officers who had opened fire, labeling them "prejudiced." In September 2005, a Justice Ministry probe decided not to prosecute any policemen or officers involved in the October 2000 shootings, citing insufficient evidence; the decision was condemned by Israeli human rights and Arab rights organizations.
  • While extended full political rights, some one million Arab citizens of Israel (roughly 19 percent of the population) receive inferior education, housing, and social services relative to the Jewish population.
  • the Law of Citizenship, passed in 2003, bars citizenship to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza who marry Arab-Israelis.
The above is only in relation to Israel’s policies towards its Arab citizens; Israel’s policies in the occupied territories are much worse. Now I do understand that Israel exists under very particular conditions and that it is maybe unfair to directly compare it to other Western countries. Still the fact remains that Arab Israeli citizens are discriminated against. And I am not sure in what sense Israel's policies in the occupied territories for some 40 years now are irrelevant to the issue of Israel's respect for human rights. Dianelos 20:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
  1. The residency thing may apply to Palestinians, not Israeli citizens (Arab of Jew alike).
  2. The lack of civil marriage hurts everyone, it has nothing specific to do with Arabs. An atheist would have to undergo a religous marriage, that he doesn't believe in. Many people (mostly immigrants from Russia) are not recognized as Jewish by the central Rabbinate, and so cannot marry. A Cohen and a divorcee (woman) cannot marry. However, one can get married in some other country (Cyprus is popular for that), and Israel DOES recognize those marriages. No same-sex marriage, though. Not sure if Israel will accept such marriage from Canada or some such place.
  3. The october 2000 events - I don't know the full details of that, but I do know that Arab demostrators were blocking roads and throwing rocks at people's cars, injuring them. The situation was very volatile, and the demonstrations were spreading. Perhaps the use of deadly force was justified - I don't know.
  4. The law of citizenship protects Israel from immigration from a people it's at war with. I know of Jews who can't marry their Palestinian lovers because of that. Arabs can still marry everyone else, including Jordanian and Egyptian citizens. This law has nothing to do with discrimination against Arabs, but with the security of Israel. okedem 21:40, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Until we enjoy some consensus on this issue, I have placed the words, "some regard it as" as an introductory qualifier to the claim that Israel is the only country in the Middle East with comprehensive political rights. Leaving it as it was would be unrepresentative of the views and research presented by a number of editors here. Tiamut 08:10, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
My understanding about #1 is that according to international law Israel should automatically have given citizenship to all the residents of East Jerusalem when it annexed it. Instead Israeli law now strips the people who live there even of their residency status if they leave for three months. It really does not look like respecting peoples' human rights. I agree with you that strictly speaking it's not discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, but the claim we are discussing here, namely "comprehensive political rights and civil rights" covers all people living within what Israel considers its area.
As for #2 and #4 I understand you are saying that the human rights of all citizens of Israel are being violated, and that therefore these are not cases of specific discrimination against Arab citizens. However that may be, again, what we are discussing above is the general claim of "comprehensive political rights and civil liberties" and the quotes above show that even the right-leaning Freedom House site does not support this claim. It documents discrimination against the Arab minority (who "receive inferior education, housing, and social services relative to the Jewish population") and documents other cases, where as you explain, the human rights of all citizens of Israel (Jew and Arab alike) are being violated.
Now it is clear to me that there is more freedom and respect for human rights in Israel proper than what is the norm in the region, and I understand that Israelis are proud of that. The question is how to put this in the lead in a way that is not contentious, and without, for example, having to add Israel's very severe violation of human rights in the occupied territories. After all according to WP:Lead we should establish context, and Israel's policies in the occupied territories is really a huge part of the context here. Maybe we should rather follow Tiamut's suggestion above "The lead should be simple and non-controversial" and try to be really minimalists and factual in the lead.
As recently as the 1st of September the lead looked like this:
Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help•info); Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Jerusalem is Israel's official capital, although Israel's sovereignty is not widely recognised by the international community (see Positions on Jerusalem). [2]
Israel is a parliamentary democracy and the world's only Jewish state, though its population includes citizens from many different ethnic and religious backgrounds (see Israelis).
I would like to suggest two versions:
Version A (with only - I think - uncontroversial statements):
Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help•info); Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. Israel's exact borders are disputed. It covers an area of approximately 21,000 square kilometers and has a population of approximately six million people.
Israel is the world's only Jewish state although Israel's population includes citizens from many ethnic and religious backgrounds. The State of Israel was founded in 1948 as the result of the Zionist movement in the area that was the birthplace of the Jewish people. The Jews were expelled from this area in the 1st century CE, and this area was inhabited by Muslims since the 5th century CE. However Jews have always maintained some physical presence in the region as well as a strong cultural and religious bond with it. Since its creation Israel has faced the struggle of the Arab Israeli conflict which had tremendous effects on its society.
Israel is a parliamentary democracy consisting of legislative, executive and judicial branches. Israel enjoys a vibrant cultural life, free press, and a highly technologically advanced economy. It is ranked 23rd out of 177 countries in the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index.
Version B (really minimalist):
Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help•info); Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.
The State of Israel was founded in 1948. It is the world's only Jewish state although Israel's population includes citizens from many ethnic and religious backgrounds. Since its creation Israel has faced the struggle of the Arab Israeli conflict.
Israel is a parliamentary democracy and has an advanced economy. It is ranked 23rd out of 177 countries in the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index.
Dianelos 08:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I think version A would be better, although - "Israel's exact borders are disputed." - misleading, and doesn't provide any information. We should write the "It is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the east, and Egypt in the south-west" part. The borders with Egypt and Jordan were according to peace treaties, the one with lebanon approved by the UN. Israel is (with or without the Golan) bordered by Syria on the east. We could add something like "Israel is currently in control of the West Bank, Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, not recognized as part of its territory".
"approximately six million people." - No, it's seven million. No reason to fight over this, it's just more recent, and more accurate.
"The Jews were expelled from this area in the 1st century CE, and this area was inhabited by Muslims since the 5th century CE." - Jews were expelled several times, but even after the 2nd century AD there was still a large community in Israel - see Jewish history, and History of Palestine. Also, there were no certainly no Muslims in Palestine in the 5th century - Islam didn't yet exist. That conquest was in the 7th century (638AD). Also, the muslims were displaced by the Crusaders later on, and then returned. It's a problematic sentence. Maybe something like - "Though Jews finally lost their independence in the area in 135AD, they maintained a presence..."? okedem 09:38, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Oh, and I think we should add a link to Land of Israel (ארץ ישראל). okedem 10:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
You are of course right about the Islamic conquest date. Still I understand the Jews were the minority in the Land of Israel since the 1st century and Muslims were the majority there since the 7th century. My point is not to rub this in, but only to point out that if we are going to have an item justifying the creation of Israel in this region ("However Jews have always maintained some physical presence in the region as well as a strong cultural and religious bond with it.") then I think neutrality requires we also state that Muslims have been the majority in this region for the last 1,300 years before the creation of the State of Israel. In any case I see the consensus moves towards avoiding this issue altogether in the lead, which is probably wiser.Dianelos 07:56, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Dianelos, just for the record, this version of a majority of muslims for 1300 years is inaccurate. According to Don Cassius statistics, even after the bar kochva Jewish revolt, meaning in the years 130-200 atleast, there were atleast 3 million Jews. That number dwindled in time due to persecutions. The area went through some "fascinating" times. Part of it was the Muslims, but part of it was the Crusaders and many differnet tribes, so muslims didn't really live here in big numbers throughout these 1300 years. The crusaders banished the muslims just like romans banished Jews. According to Volney at the end of the 18th centuty there were only 200,000 people in total in Palestine. Now this issue is contested whether significant number of Palestinians emigrated in the late 18th and 19th centuries to the region or not. Pro-Arab sources continually attack this theory and Pro-Zionist sources support this. Whether or not there was, you realise that the question of continuos muslim majority in the region is very doubtful... Amoruso 08:04, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Dianelos, I think that the wording "some physical presence" makes it quite clear that it's not a majority, but a small continuous presence. You could add the word "minority" somewhere in there, but it's, again, complicated, since you'd have to make it clear when the Jews became a minority (after the Roman expulsions? After the Muslim conquest? I don't even know this one). okedem 09:23, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I would like to point everyone to WP:V and WP:CITE. Currently, every phrase is supported by refs. Tiamut, your concerns over Israel's democracy are your concerns, but there is a good ref to support the claim in the introduction. The population/geography of Israel is for Israel to define if it controls it, and the current version does not make any political remarks, because Israel does border all these countries with or without any disputed territories. Everything is sourced and the lead looks pretty good. A minamilist version will be :

Israel (Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל (help•info); Medinat Yisra'el; Arabic: دَوْلَةْ إِسْرَائِيل‎, Dawlat Isrā'īl), officially the State of Israel, is a country in Western Asia on the southeastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. It is bordered by Lebanon in the north, Syria and Jordan in the east, and Egypt in the south-west and has a population of over seven million people.
The modern State of Israel was founded in 1948. It is the world's only Jewish state although Israel's population includes citizens from many ethnic and religious backgrounds (see also: Israelis).
Israel is a parliamentary democracy and has an technologically advanced economy. It is ranked 23rd out of 177 countries in the 2005 United Nations Human Development Index.

If one wants to delete everything and put that, then it's possibe. MY minimized vesion above does reflect many lead articles which says borders, date of indepdence, something about economy, un development index, democracy, population. none of that is disputed or controversial (also the current lead isn't though). Amoruso 14:47, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

And also wants to point out that NO controversial claims about west bank, golan heights and so on should be put in the lead. I see no country with such controversial claims in the leads. Even Iran (!) doesn't have anything negative in its lead. We should avoid any mention of that, which is the reason "positions on Jerusalem" was brought up - most countries do not mention the capital in the lead nor any disputes. So a minimized version will simply contain the borders with COUNTRIES and that's it with no mention of any conflicts. An expanded version is the one in existance which reflects Israel's history. No arab country lead mention Jews or Israel even though Jews were in very large numbers in Morroco, Egypt, Yemen, even Lebanon and have influenced these countries but suffered terrible injustices. How about Poland ? Poland used to have a very large percentage of Jews which made the country one of the most advanced in the world. However, Poland participated in active genocide of these Jews. Should that be in the lead ? no. So the proposal to actually chage the paragraph about Jews and land of Israel is unbelievably ludricous. Dainelos, please stop such crazy proposals, and I'll suggest respectfully you propose such changes about Greece and Turkey next time. Amoruso 14:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
If we are going to put the borders in the Lead, why not quote a reference which is widely considered as authoritative such as the CIA World Factbook (a publication of the US federal government which nobody can accuse of being anti-Israel)? See here how they describe Israel's borders. Also, where is it written that one must describe borders with countries only? Why not with geographical areas? But my main argument is this: Both the International community's view and Israel's view is that the West Bank is not part of the State of Israel. Why not make this unambiguously clear in the article (in the Lead and everywhere else)? I really don't understand.Dianelos 07:24, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
If the West Bank , Golan Heights, Gaza Strip(?) influenced the borders with the countries listed, I'd agree with you, but they don't. Israel still borders these countries with or without these territories. So essentially this is not a question of borders, it is a question of disputed territories. If you want to include the "International community's view" on the disputed territories why not include the "International community's view" that Israel is the only democracy in the middle east ? Either we expand or not... if you include the territories, it will be under full edit-warring, and justly so, because it's a highly contested issue so it's better to avoid that in the lead or be prepared to bring all point of views and immediatelly expand on other subjects for balance bringing us back to an old disputed version. fact is current version makes no POV and can't be blamed for any POV. Amoruso 07:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Two recent additions

Tiamut - you added two things to the article:

  1. "Lebanon is also a parliamentary democracy, though confessional in nature." - What does confesisonal mean here? The Confessional article doesn't help.
  2. "Organized Jewish militias like the Lehi, and Irgun stepped up their attacks on Palestinian civilians and British officers." - you added that sentence, first with a cite notice, and then removed the notice. Do you have a cite for it? If not, what are you basing it on? okedem 14:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi Okedem. Thanks for pointing out that the wikilink to confessional is not the correct one. I will change it to confessionalism (politics). If you go there, it explains what confessionalism is. As to your question about why I removed the citation needed notice on the sentence I added, if you read the information about the Lehi and the Irgun in Wikipedia itself, those articles upport the claim made in the sentence and describe in detail the attacks perpetrated against Palestinian civilians and British officers. If you still think I should find an external link that supports the argument, I will do so, but I thought the internal wikilink references were adequate. Tiamut 09:10, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I looked through the Lehi and Irgun articles, and couldn't find support for that particular statement.
  1. I didn't see anywhere that the frequency of attacks grew.
  2. The Irgun article only mentions one incident involving Arab civilians during that period (1947-8) - the Dier Yassin massacre.
  3. The Lehi article does mention the train bombing of 1948, centainly an attack against officers and civilian, but I'm not sure it was worse than previous Lehi attacks.
  4. The Lehi and Irgun articles both mention mostly attacks against British officers, not arab civilians.
I can certainly believe that they attacked civilian in other incidents (especially when it comes to the Lehi), I'm just not sure the statement is accurate. okedem 09:31, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough. I changed the sentence wording to "continued" removing "stepped up". I felt the sentence needed inclusion because without it the "scattered attacks against Jewish civilians" sentence misrepresents the situation as one where there was no organized Jewish resistance. Thanks for pointing out that the terminology is my initial write-up was not backed out by the internal sources cited. I appreciate the way you went about it too. Tiamut 10:02, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
As do I. okedem 10:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

changed the lebanon article to "stable". Some claim is not something to be put in lead, and now the sentence is obviously correct.

Clarified the civilians additions. Since the Jews accepted partition, they did not intiate the attacks but it turned into a civil war after Arabs rejected it - I think that wasn't clear, because it was writteen as if militas attacked Arabs even though the partition accepted. Amoruso 11:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The citation of the 1948 seemed to be jumbled in the hebrew word, removed it, and I don't think it's necessary. It can be added again without messing the () up. Amoruso 11:05, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

added refs requested. Amoruso 11:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, how about we add a footnote to "stable" and explain the situation with Lebanon there? okedem 11:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
good idea . mention of lebanon can be in the footnote. Amoruso 11:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Why would this article discuss Lebanon's status at all? This is an article about Israel, not Lebanon. Jayjg (talk) 16:48, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree. The only reason Lebanon was mentioned was the insistence on quantifying the number of democracies in the Middle East; i.e., the use of "only democracy". In a previous edit that was reverted, I removed "only democracy" to put an end to the debate over whether or not Lebanon was a stable democracy. I think it is preferable to describe Israel as a parliamentary democracy without quantifying how many other democracies there are in the Middle East. I don't think a footnote on Lebanon in an Israel article is appropriate, and particularly not in the lead. Tiamut 20:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
You say "one often reads the phrase “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East” but I am afraid it’s propaganda, as it is patently false. ..... I am removing this claim from the article." Agree PalestineRemembered 18:37, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

POV Terminology : pogrom

Pogrom, which is currently used in this article to describe the riots in 1920s, seems to be inappropriately applied in this case. The definition here [ttp://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861738343/pogrom.html] indicates "organized violence" supported by a government against a minority. Considering that there was no Palestinian government and many of the riots were spontaneous actions, this constitutes POV language that mischaracterizes what actually happened. I have tried to remove the word but the edit was reverted. Thoughts please? Thank you. Tiamut 09:18, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

A pogrom is a widely used term for riots/massacres agaisnt Jews. It's a common used name for the riots in Palestine, as in the 1929 [25] and the others. instead of looking at encarta, look at wikipedia Pogrom, it has no such requirements that you specified. Pogroms as specifed are either "spontaneous or organized" btw, and they also weren't spontaneous (1920,1929,1936..) Amoruso 09:30, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
The riots were incited under the leadership Haj Amin al-Husseini who was an official leader appointed by the British at the time. Russian pogroms were generally incited by spreading rumors that Jews were using blood of Christian children to make passover matzohs. See blood libel. These middle eastern pogroms were started by spreading rumors that Jews planned to desecrate Muslim holy sites, please see [26]. I don't mean to be disrespectful, but just in case you don't know, Jews actually do not make matzo with blood--flour and water is used, and don't desecrate the religious sites of others--they are respected and protected. Elizmr 15:13, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
But you are being disrespectful. There is nothing in my posts that even refers to these blood libels you mention or indicates that I hold any belief in them. And yet you feel free to slander me and raise the temperature of this debate needlessly by intimating that I hold support these ridiculous notions. Additionally, your false claim that Jews have never descrated the religious sites of others is pure religious chauvinism (See the report Sanctity Denied:The Destruction and Abuse of Muslim and Christian Holy Places in Israel 2004 here[27] or Virgin Mary Statue Desecrated by Israeli Occupation here[28] or this index of articles on Israeli crimes against Christianity here [29]. I could go on and on but I think you get the idea).
My point is raising a question regarding the use of the word pogrom was not to minimize or dismiss violence carried out by Palestinians against Jews, but to avoid the use of inaccurate and POV language. My understanding of the definition of the term is narrower than your own. If it has that broad-based a definitional use and has also been used to describe attacks against non-Jewish communities, and you insist on applying here, than it can and should be applied to the actions of Jewish militas in places like Deir Yassin, for example, or for example in describing the acts of Israeli settlers in Hebron against Palestinian civilians in the Old City there. Either we apply the use of the word evenly across the board, or we do not use it at all. Tiamut 12:04, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Furthermore, many of the most famous pograms began not when the government incited a population, but on a local level when some gentile kid dissappeared, and the Jews were there to blame.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 18:37, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, my mother always told me that my bedroom looked like it went through a pogrom. Amoruso 00:19, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Why did the British abandon the Mandate?

I changed this line: "In 1947, following increasing levels of violence together with unsuccessful efforts to reconcile the Jewish and Arab populations, the British government decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate."

so as to read: "In 1947, following increasing levels of violence from groups such as Lehi and Irgun and general war-weariness, the British government decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate."

I did this because, although communal tensions and violence were still a problem, it had decreased (greatly), and doesn't seem to have bothered the British very much. Whereas the bombings (King David Hotel, night of the bridges) and other attacks on them by Lehi and Irgun bothered them greatly. It was this, along with general "war-weariness" that impelled them to leave. I can't claim to have fully grasped NPOV yet, but it seemed to me that the original was misleading, and the new wording almost universally accepted/acceptable. I'm not interested in any form of edit war, but it seems to me that my wording would be an improvement. PalestineRemembered 21:24, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not esp fond of either version, but how about supporting this notion with some appropriate citations? Elizmr 21:51, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
There are really two points here, and I thought they were both "Well Known Facts".
1) The British (in Palestine, India and most places) weren't overly bothered if the different nationalities held "communal riots". (Some have called it "divide and rule").
2) Although the British had put a lot of effort into putting down the 1936-39 Arab revolt, they'd mostly succeeded. The Palestinians weren't giving them a lot of grief. Whereas Lehi (in particular) was doing so, starting in 1944, and by 1946/47 making the place ungovernable, with the forces that could be spared. PalestineRemembered 22:12, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, you need to provide citations for your "well known facts". YOur analysis is oversimplifing the issue greatly. Elizmr 22:14, 7 October 2006 (UTC)
In a sense, I'm trying to prove a negative. Nobody seems to have made a statement on this subject, Atlee simply announced it. Yes, there is grave danger of over-simplifying, but I don't feel that's what I've done.
So ...... can you help me out here?
1)Were there (any) Arab attacks on the British going on (say, 1945-47)? I'm not aware of any.
2)Was there any feeling that the Mandate was discredited by the "inter-communal" violence (which, as best I understand it, was not very severe at the time)?
3)If you were to accept both points above, then does my wording cover the case? PalestineRemembered 07:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm surprised but I agree with PalestineRemembered. The British left because of attacks from the Jewish resistance groups of course. There wasn't any fighting from Palestinian groups directed against the British, and this what drove them away. The thing is the current version actually says that - that's what it meant anyway. Attempts to reconcile is also true, as they tried to impose some partition with the peel commission. The violence is supposed to mean the violence British suffered (at the hands of the Jews, true). Amoruso 00:16, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I thought I'd name the groups who were attacking the British in the interests of completeness, but not actually ascribe them to one "side" or the other (interests of NPOV?). Is there any possibility of calling my proposed changes "universally accepted/acceptable"? PalestineRemembered 07:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
I'll tell you what the problem is - yes, the jewish militias wanted the british to leave. They attacked them to that end. But is it why they left? You made a connection there, without referencing it, and that's Original Research, which is prohibited on wikipedia. If you can find a respectable source saying that - please add it, otherwise, you can't write it. okedem 09:49, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
This source [30] cites three potential explanations for the British departure at the bottom of the page, beginning with the attacks by the Irgun, while noting that there is some controversy among historians on the issue. In my opinion, the sentence proposed by 'Palestine Remembered' should remain in the article and be followed by the other two explanations with a citation to this cource, along with other sources that can be found as well. Tiamut 11:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I'd been unable to find anything that matched the case. I propose changing the sentence to read: "In 1947, following increasing levels of violence from groups such as Irgun [31] and Lehi, uncontrollable immigration from Europe and general war-weariness, the British government decided to withdraw from the Palestine Mandate." PalestineRemembered 12:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
That seems fine to me. okedem 12:32, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Me too. And you are most welcome. Tiamut 12:41, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

It is important to remember that the British (concerned about oil) had capitulated the all of the Arab demands at the expense of what they'd previously promised the Jews so, yeah, the Arabs didn't push the British out. Elizmr 16:23, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Zionists armed themselves from 1920 - or from 1880?

The article contains the statement "As tensions grew between the Jewish and Arab populations, and with little apparent support from the British Mandate authorities, the Jewish community began to rely on itself for defense".

I think that's quite misleading. The Zionists arrived in Palestine with their guns and set about upsetting people. Ro'i 1968, p206: 1891 June 24 .... Jerusalem Arab notables sent a telegram to the grand Vizier of Constantinople ........ "The Jews are taking all the lands out of the hands of the Muslims, taking all the commerce into their hands and bringing arms into the country," they complained.

Almost any commentary on the early Zionists makes it clear they were armed (1882 - "The Jews will yet arise and, arms in hand (if need be), declare that they are the masters of their ancient homeland.")

And they also were upsetting people, here's a new book people may not have seen - "Jewish Opposition to Zionism" Rabkin, English translated 2006 p136 Von Kressenstein .... during World War I ..... non-Zionists, that is to say those Jews who had no political objectives .......preponderant majority in Palestine. The Zionists ......... terrorized the non-Zionists. ..... feared that the activities of the Zionists would destroy their good relations"

I don't know how to even start re-writing this article, and I'm sure people are attached to it as it is. But it needs quite a bit of work and serious re-balancing. (eg article says "As a result of the 1921 Arab attacks, the Haganah was formed to protect Jewish settlements" - I'm sure that's not right either).

The Jews purchased lands lawfully, they did not "take them". The young jewish settlement were inhabited by immigrants who had never held a gun in their lives, nor had any experience cultivating land. They were (at the beginning) a tiny minority in Palestine. After attacks from Arabs, the Jews began organizing defense, like Hashomer, and later the Haganah. To claim that a few thousand Jews, who were but clerks and bankers in Russia or Poland, actually muscled Arabs out of their lands is, to say the very least, preposterous. okedem 16:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)
Just an aside... Most Jews came from the US and the rest of Europe mainly I would have guessed - I gather the Jew's didn't fair too well in Poland or Russia... Il agree the article might need minor rebalancing, but an article like this will never be perfect. Okedem is right though - it was 98% legal. HawkerTyphoon 19:45, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Immigration from the US was really very small compared to other areas, such as Poland, Russia, Germany, Arab countries, etc. The first few immigration waves came from Eastern Europe - see First Aliyah, Second Aliyah. It's the same for most. The Jews from these countries had much more of an incentive to come to Israel/Palestine than American Jews.
When I read claims like the one above, I can't help but laugh, trying to picture my grandfather trying to take land away from the Arabs. My weak, overweight, diabetic, half-blind, music teacher grandfather. Sure... okedem 23:05, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
Come now, Okedem, nobody suggested that your grandfather specifically, or even that the majority of the Jewish immigrants, took up arms. On the other hand when the Arabs who lived in this corner of the world were confronted with a movement that declared in 1882 (when only about 15,000 Jews lived there) that "The Jews will ... declare that they are the masters of their ancient homeland." don't you find it reasonable that there would be some kind of negative reaction? Try to see the situation from the other party's point of view (I think that's important in order to achieve neutrality): Here are a people who have left (or were driven from) this place 1,700 years ago and are now coming back declaring they intend to be the masters here. A people who traditionally were respected and have lived in peace in Muslim countries. But now they come in droves buying land but also arming themselves. From their point of view Zionism looked like an invasion by any and all means - surely you can see that.
I understand perfectly well that those editors who now live in Israel have very strong opinions and deep convictions about the subject matter of this article. But please remember that this is an international encyclopedia that absolutely aims for neutrality. So, even though this is an article about Israel, it's not only or basically the Israeli point of view that is supposed to be expounded here.
Also please consider that national governments actively promote nationalist propaganda. That's true of democratic governments too. For example Greek history as taught in schools and recycled in the popular media here is not the actual history. I found that out by looking for sources written by foreigners (if you dare question the official version of our history you are branded a "traitor"). I think the editors of this article should search for independent sources too (and please do not fall for the idea that anybody who criticizes Israel or Zionism is therefore an antisemite). Let me mention one example: The expulsion of the Arab population by force if need be was a part of the Zionist movement. I think that's a historical fact, and not really something to be ashamed of. History is not "nice". (In our war of independence we Greeks "liberated" lands where Turks were the clear majority, moved our people there and made life for the remaining Turks as hard as possible.) Here is what John B. Quigley writes in page 25 of his book "Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice":
Ben-Gurion was less optimistic about securing consent to a removal of so many Arabs. He proposed "transferring the Arab population with their consent or without, and then to enlarge Jewish colonization". "We must expel the Arabs and take their places", but he saw no need to pay compensation. Joseph Weitz, a Jewish National Fund official who directed Zionist settlement, wrote in 1940: "Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no place in the country for both peoples together.... With the Arabs we shall not achieve our aim of being an independent people in this little country." Weitz wanted "at least the western part [west of the Jordan River] of Eretz Israel without Arabs." He saw "no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries; transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain."
As Wikipedia editors we all must try to reach for a neutral result, and I understand that this must be especially difficult for Israeli editors. Cheers, and sorry for the sermonizing. As an ex-teacher I tend to do that. Dianelos 07:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The Exodus theory you present is not a fact at all. John B. Quigley can say that but he'll wrong. In fact, even Jabotinsky, who Ben Gurion hated and was supposed to be the extremist, advocated that Arabs should never be transferred and with every future Jewish state the President should be a Jew and the Vice President shall be an Arab OR VICE VERSA. The Declaration of Indepedence also refutes this paranoia theory. As for the rest, you made sense but you lost all credibility with "A people who traditionally were respected and have lived in peace in Muslim countries" - even if one can argue that at certain times Christians or European countries dealt worse with Jews, the very word "respect" here is ludricous. I would direct you to Norman Stillman, The Jews of Arab Lands. How much respect did Joseph HaNagid and 5000 of the Jewish quarter get when they were massacred in muslim spain in 1066, in the great massacre of jews in Fez morooco in 1465, in the desruction of synagogues in syria and egypt and iraq through out the middle ages and in forced conversion or death imposed by the arab countries. Amoruso 08:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

John B. Quigley presents quotes by Weitz who was a key person in the Zionist movement in the 40's, and also by Ben-Gurion. There are many other quotes of key people that refer to actual policy. You quote Jabotinsky's words in the constitution he proposed, as well as the words present in the Declaration and Independence. These are fine and idealistic documents but documents are pieces of paper. I am sure the Soviet constitution at Stalin's time was a very fine document too. What matters as a source in matters of history is how people communicated between themselves explaining and organizing what they did. And there is an overwhelming quantity of writings by Zionists that documents what happened. They may not sound nice today, but any reasonable person will understand the expediency Zionists in the 40s were facing. Incidentally some of this stuff was suppressed by Israeli censorship, including the censorship of a book by Yitzhak Rabin that documents how he drove out 50,000 Palestinians at the 48 war (see here in Wikipedia or here for the original article). I don’t think that after reading the historical records anybody can really doubt that a) many Palestinians were driven away by the Jews, b) many Palestinians fled the war-zone on their own volition as is normal and expected, c) Israel did not allow those who for one or the other reason had left to return to their homes and quickly confiscated their properties. (In any case I suggest we continue this discussion in the Palestinian exodus article.)
As for Jews who lived in Muslim countries being respected I think that's basically a correct statement, at least as compared to how the Jews who lived in Christian countries fared. Historically in Muslim societies the respect for the Jews' basic human rights (life, property, religion, and so on) was much greater than in Christian societies. How much greater? My guess would be 100 times greater. But I shall have a look at the book you recommend. Dianelos 11:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's not mix things up. The original claim here was about Jews in the late 19th century taking lanf forcefully. That's a ridicules, unsubstantiated claim.
Agreed.
In the war of 1948 some people were indeed driven out of their homes, on both sides - I'll just remind you of the Jews living in Kfar Darom (near Gaza), Gush Etzion, Hebron, and the Jews living in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Agreed. Also I understand many Jews were subsequently driven from other Arab lands.
Some of the villages whose residents were driven out by the IDF in 1948 were actively fighting against the Jews, and would have continued to do so had the IDF not expelled them.
<snip>As I said above I recognize the expediency. But let me point out that those who were accused of ethnic cleansing in the recent Yugoslav wars were facing pretty much the same situation.
I'm sure some people had nothing to do with it, and were punished for other people actions. Mistakes were definitely made, and there were some people who wanted to expell all the Arabs in the region. However, Israel does have some 20% arabs in its population, so obviously, those extremists didn't succeed. okedem 11:57, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes. But I find it sad that the Israeli society is becoming increasingly radical. I recently read that the majority of the Jewish Israelis would like the government to try and have Arab Israelis leave, see this Haaretz article
Please don't insert your responses in the middle of my comment, it can quickly become quite confusing.
In fact, Israeli society is becoming increasingly more liberal, and more left-wing - the idea of leaving the occupied territories, and letting the Palestinians establish a country there was a fringe opinion back in the 1980s. It became more acceptable in 1993 (Oslo Accords), and now the majority wants to leave the territories, and the only major arguement is about a few percentages of the territory, adjacant to the 1967 line ("green line"), and the exact status of Jerusalem. The disengagement plan had major public support, and Israel dd completely leave the Gaza strip.
The Israeli-Arab situation isn't very good, mainly because of the actions of their leaders - representatives of the arab parties in the Knesset repeatedly show their support for Arab countries, and their hatered for Israel. They come to visit places like Syria (an enemy of Israel). They blame Israel for every conflict, even when Israel was in the right (like the withdraw from Lebanon, approved by the UN). In the last war, Arab leaders (and many Arab civilians) blamed Israel for everything, and talked about Nassaralah like he's a saint, even when their own towns were hit with Hizbollah rockets. Instead of trying to better the lives of their voters, the arab knesset members only talk about the palestinians.
It's impossible to have a unified society when a part of it wants the destruction of the country. Quite frankly, Israeli-Arabs aren't helping the situation. okedem 13:51, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
If Israeli society is becoming increasingly more liberal and more left-wing, it's remarkable how conservative and right-wing it is voting in the elections ;-) Rather, the thesis of a book I recently read ("How Israel Lost: The Four Qustions" by Richard Ben Cramer, a Pulitzer Prize winning Jew) is that Israeli society is getting more and more tribalized. It's an interesting read.
As for your claim that Israeli-Arabs want the destruction of the country - I find that hard to believe (do you have any references for this?). I think rather they want a just solution for the plight of their Palestinian brethren. Leaving the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank and accepting the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state there surely does not imply the destruction of Israel. I know there is the problem of the hundreds of thousands of the settlers in the West Bank, but this is a problem created by Israel and I am sure Israelis are intelligent enough to come up with a smart solution of it. Dianelos 08:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
I have a funny feeling you have little idea of what you are talking about, "it's remarkable how conservative and right-wing it is voting in the elections", this does not have any relation to reality as the Labor party and the Likud party trade majorities every couple of years and the last election was actually won by the centrist Kadima party.
I also find it comical that you would even state that "Israeli society is getting more and more tribalized" and expect to be taken seriously here. A good clue when somebody is going to say something pov is when they justify it ahead of time by pointing out the ethnicity of the original writer as if that has anything to do with it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:49, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you obviously don't know what you're talking about. The largest party, Kadima, has stated (before the elections) that it will evacuate more settlers (a sort of second Disengagement plan). There's a huge majority in the Knesset for the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. Even the very right-wing "Israel Beytenu" party supports that. This is an incredible achievement for the saner part of the Israeli public. The problem is that the Palestinians just don't know when it's time to stop killing and start talking - they can have that state anytime.
I'm not saying that all, or even most, Israeli-Arabs want the destruction of Israel. But that's the way their leaders talk, that's the way a lot of them act. To support Hizbollah during the war with Lebanon was just unforgivable. It has nothing to do with the Palestinians, it has nothing to do with occupied territory (the UN approved Israel's complete withdrawl). Hizbollah initiated the whole thing, and to support them, or even to not place the blame with them, is to agree with their viewpoint, that the entire country is illegal, and should be conquered by the Arabs.
And to make it clear - I'm not talking about the creation of a Palestinian state as a danger to Israel. I think it's what Israel needs, I support it, and now most of the country does. okedem 09:04, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Come on, people, didn't you see the smiley above? That statement was not meant to be taken so seriously. Still, you don't want to argue that Israeli society as it was during the first 30 years of its history has moved to the left in the last 30 years.
As for Israeli society getting more and more tribalized this is the opinion of Eitan Haber, Rabin's bureau chief, and I quote parts from his words in the book I mentioned above: "Look. The real problem is the disintegration and a tribalization of the society. ... First you have about one million Ashkenazi sabras - born in Israel from European families - or the Ramat Gan aristocracy. They are the intellectuals, heads of high-tech companies, the heads of the army - and they're looking down with hubris on the entire rest of the population. Number two, the Russians, also about one million. There are living in their ghetto. They have their theaters, their papers, their own TV, their groceries. They don't need us. ... Number three, Israeli Arabs - also about one million, also in their ghetto. They also have their papers, their own TV, their own politics. ... Number four, the ultra-orthodox - less than a million. They also have their own papers, forty or fifty stations on the radio - no TV because they don't watch TV. They don't want to look at us. Nobody has any contact with them. Five, the settlers, a quarter million. Not necessarily orthodox ... they look on us as a different country. They say: 'WE are fighting the terror. WE are endangering our babies'... They feel they are the pioneers, like we all used to be. Sixth - and the most dangerous (also, most numerous)- the Sephardim who came from the Arab countries. They are the cooks, the drivers, the workers. It's the most dangerous for the life of Israel because they have gone completely tribal. Their whole politics is about getting a share of the pie for the Sepahrdim - this is exemplified by Shas". Sure enough, the current leader of Shas strikes me at least as rather dangerous, see this interview of last August.
As for most Israelis now agreeing with the creation of a Palestinian state, I hope it’s not the kind of “state” that Barak proposed back in 2000. Again I quote from Cramer’s book: “Actually by the bitter end of the peace talks the Israelis were proposing to keep about six percent of the West Bank – three blocs of their settlements (all the big ones) and the new highways that lead to them. In exchange they would cede to the Palestinians desert land in Israel that was, in area, equivalent to three percent. But the map that resulted from Israel keeping just six percent would have yielded a “Nation of Palestine” that was actually three small ghettos, each walled off from the others by Israeli fortifications, or roads patrolled by the Israeli army, or fences with check points. In other words, a citizen of Palestine still couldn’t go around his own country – say, from Nablus to Hebron (not to mention the wholly separate ghetto of Gaza) – without the acquiescence of Israelis. In addition, Israel proposed to keep five army bases in the Jordan valley (on the east side of “Palestine”), and to maintain full control of its airspace above “Palestine”, and the water aquifer below “Palestine”, and the seacoast, and all the borders of “Palestine”” Frankly I have trouble believing that the above correctly reflects what Barak proposed, but if that’s what he proposed then it was a joke as far as I am concerned. That’s not a “nation”. I am sure that Zionists would never have accepted such a “nation” for themselves, and one basic principle is that what's good for the goose is good for the gander. My opinion (and I realize it’s worth next to nothing) is this: Give back every inch – that’s the right thing, the lawful thing, and the only thing that will satisfy Arab honor – and then haggle. In the end everybody will feel vindicated and a winner, both peoples will be free to live in peace and prosper, and the world will have one less problem to worry about.Dianelos 17:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Danielos, you seem to misunderstand WP:TALK. Please see WP:NOT, especially WP:SOAPBOX. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:58, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Right. Amoruso bellow had already called me to order. I realize I wasted Wikipedia's resources; I will send a contribution to make up ;-) BTW I just had a marvelous idea about how to solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Now what do I do? Is there a place in Wikipedia where Wikipedians discuss peace issues? Is it alright if I put it in my own talk page and invite you to tell me what you think there? Dianelos 06:02, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Amoruso was gracious enough to invite me to explain my idea in my talk page. I would like to invite the reader to have a look and comment on it. Has such an idea been discussed before? Dianelos 10:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Let me try to end this discussion quickly. The Jews in the Land of Israel were arming themselves from about 12th century BCE without interruption. Next question. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

NOT a discussion board

Why don't you just open a discussion board of Israelpolitics.com . This is NOT a discussion board !!! The section above was getting too long on non relevant issues. It should possibly be removed too by an adminstrator. Amoruso 18:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Permanent semi-protection

This page is too vulnerable not to be semi-protected. Some administrator recently removed the semi-protection. Since then, as before, there are at least 1 or 2 daily non-registered vandals here. I propose that the page be permanently semi-protected, and request the opinion of the others on this. --Daniel575 | (talk) 10:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

You know what really bothers me is that users want to insert negative images of Israel in the lead under the pretext that it's according to WP:LEAD. It's pretty amazing that if you look at basically 90% of the country articles, the lead only contains a brief notion of the borders. Looking at the middle east, The Iraq lead doesn't mention any politics or developments (!), Syria article had a lead where it concerned itself with Greater Syria and THAT'S IT (see how they will react to a current change I made to cleanup and npov it), Egypt has no mention of any conflicts or problems etc, Jordan has no mention of how it was created and so on, Iran (!) has no mention of any controversies and deals with geography and Persia. If all of Israel's neighbours have such sympathetic articles, I wish editors won't insert their WP:POV to this. In addition of course, there's the problematic human rights sections which doesn't exist in countries with far worse human rights issues. Obviously Israel's human rights issues can only be understood in the context of the region. Amoruso 07:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, why would there be a Human Rights section in a country with no Human Rights? You're not thinking clearly... okedem 10:03, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
:) Touche. Amoruso 18:07, 12 October 2006 (UTC).
Good one, okedem. 6SJ7 19:43, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whyDaniel575 is so protective

I don't know whyDaniel575 is so protective of his versions.

His edit of

15:14, 11 October 2006 (edit) Daniel575 (Talk | contribs) (rv 'regarded as')

removed and vandalized my carefully crafted improvement that I had worked on for some time, and inserted just TWO MINUTES previously.

This is over-hasty and rash - a common pattern I have found with Israel-related topics. Has anyone got an axe to grind?

He has removed several clarifications regarding citizen hood etc. – his description of his actions as "(rv 'regarded as')" is IMHO highly misleading. He also introduces patent inaccuracies, e.g.

Jews have always maintained physical presence in the region as well as a strong

This is clearly false. (100,000 years ago?) What he is putting here is a myth, not fact.(I had changed it to "for thousands of years", which may itself be questionable)

There is also the misquote of the Basic Law for Jerusalem – "eternal, individisible" – whereas my changes have tried to insert the correct wording taken from the actual text.

Johnbibby
This article is always under fire, and when someone makes a serious change to it (in lead, no less), it might quickly get reverted. Please discuss such changes before you make them.
As far as your Halakha addition - it has no place in the lead. It has very little to do with Israel. Most of the world's Jews are not even religous, and this point is irrelevant. (Oh, and it seems a lot of orthodox Jews manage just fine living outside Israel).
You wrote "...has been regarded as the 'birthplace' of the Jewish People for thousands of years" - It's not just "regarded", it is. And the "for thousands of years" part is out of place.
Jews have continually lived in Israel at least since the 12th century BC (according to archeological evidence), so that's more than three thousand years. "always" obviously means - since there were Jews, but perhaps it could be better phrased.
The current note about Jerusalem says "Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel". okedem 19:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
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