Contents

1 Archives 2 Title 3 The section of the article called "Claims" 4 Problems of terminology 5 NPOV 6 Chunk of text 7 Great article

Archives

• Talk:Palestinian territories/acrive 1

Title

Whos POV is the title (I'm guessing Palestinian). It should be in the intro.Bensaccount 21:17, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Done -- uriber 21:24, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The section of the article called "Claims"

The first major part of this article, with the heading "Claims" is so awful that it's painful to read. Much of it is downright childish and frankly I think it is an embarrassing blight on Wikipedia. Who is going to complain if I delete it completely? --Zero 12:04, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Do you not think there is anything of value in it? Is there a place on Wikipedia for the competing claims of Israelis and Palestinians regarding this land to be presented? Jayjg 14:44, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't think that what is there does justice to either side. A complete rewrite would be best, but I still think that what is there now is worse than nothing at all. --Zero 15:15, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I bet you'd be really good at a complete re-write. ;-) Jayjg 16:02, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Problems of terminology

I know it's been discussed before, but I hardly think we can call the discussion settled.

• The term "Palestinians" is used in both a narrow and a general sense.
• The term "Palestinian territories" is also used in two senses.

The definition of Palestine changed at least twice since the establishment of the British Mandate of Palestine, which by the way some people also dispute (the Brits stole it vs. we all agreed they should administer it for a while).

In English grammar, the term "Palestinian territories" would ordinarily mean:

• land belonging to Palestinians, or on which they live

Just like "Canadian territories" would mean:

• land belonging to Canadians, or on which they live

Compare also "Kurdish territory":

• land on which Kurds live

Kurds and Canadians differ, in that Kurds are in Iraq and other nearby countries; they don't have a country of their own. Canadians have their own country.

Further discussion depends on one's definitions of Palestine and "Palestinians". --Uncle Ed 16:16, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

Cut from claims section:

(Opponents argue that today's Palestinians are of Arab descent, and there is no evidence that they are related in any way to the Philistines or to the Caananites of ancient times.)

This sentence is ambiguous. I can't replace "Palestinians" with "Palestian Arabs", because that would introduce a tautology.

Opponents argue that today's Palestinian Arabs are of Arab descent.

Well, obviously ANY Arabs would be of Arab descent.

The claim seems to be arguing that the group they call "Palestinians" are the only true Palestinians, and the Jordanians and Israelis aren't Palestinian in any sense worthy of consideration. Jews who lived in Palestine aren't "Palestinian", and Israeli Arabs aren't "Palestinian".

Which raises an interesting question. Why are Israeli Arabs not considered "Palestinian" any more?

This is beginning to look uncomfortably like the shifting ground fallacy , with advocates changing the definition of Palestine and Palestinian to their advantage.

• Palestine belongs to the Palestinians.
• No Israeli is a Palestinian
• Therefore, Palestine doesn't belong to any Israelis.

The logic is valid, but for the argument to be "sound" BOTH its premises must be true. They seem to hinge on definitions of Palestine.

If we regard "Palestine" as equivalent to the mandate territory, and "Palestinian" as anyone who lived there before the League of Nations and United Nations started carving up the territory, then the argument becomes:

• The British Mandate of Palestine belongs to the people who used to live there.
• Some Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews used to live ther.
• Therefore, Palestine belongs to some Israelis.

This is why definitions are important. They change the meaning of arguments. --Uncle Ed 16:00, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Modern day Arabs are descended from all sorts of peoples, and in order to ensure that their claim to the land pre-dates any Jewish claims, Palestinians today claim to be descendants of Canaanites and Philistines. That is, no doubt, why the argument was there. Jayjg 17:42, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Which Palestinians make that claim? Non-Jordanian, non-Israeli Arabs? --Uncle Ed 18:08, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Arabs who classify themselves as Palestinian. That would include, among others, Israeli Arabs and Jordanian non-Bedouin Arabs. You're making this harder than it needs to be, Ed; nowadays there is a specific group of Arabic speaking people who self-identify as "Palestinian". This identity has taken shape over the last 40 years or so. Jayjg 22:07, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, Jay. I agonized over clicking the "Save page" button, because I feared giving offense. But I'm new Middle East history. You can call me an amiable dunce if you want...

So how about we create a Palestinian identity article? --Uncle Ed 13:26, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sigh. More proliferation of tiny overlapping articles? Jayjg 02:11, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That would make me sigh, too, Jay. How about a series of tiny, stand-alone articles which do NOT repeat each other. Instead of overlaps, we use links. Then we can see clearly how to integrate them, or just leave them separate. ----Uncle Ed (Rod Poe) 19:25, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

The introduction blatantly expresses a Pro-Israeli POV. _R_ 20:42, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The "Palestinian territories" -- as the term is used by mainstream Western journalists -- are areass sought by certain nationalists (see "Definitions of Palestinian") on which to found a new nation-state: primarily, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Because nearly all of these nationalists, as well as the bulk of their sympathizers, and the UN, consider these territiories to be under occupation by Israel, they frequently refer to them as the occupied Palestinian territories.

The term Palestinian territories, used in a more general sense, simply refers areas within the geographic region known from ancient times as "Palestine" (see definitions of Palestine).

What do you suggest, R? --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 19:32, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"as the term is used by mainstream Western journalists"? ITYMTS, as the term is used by everyone except staunch Zionists. NPOV does not necessarily mean "cover every viewpoint" (at least not in every part of the article!). "certain nationalists"? This makes it sound as though a Palestinian nation does not have widespread support among the Palestinian people (defining "Palestinian people" to mean anything other than what is commonly understood by that phrase sdoes not actually make the article neutral but simply makes its biases explicit). The piece about "Palestinian territories" more generally referring to the area known from olden times as Palestine is only possible because you have (rather bizarrely) renamed the page from "Occupied Palestinian territories", which is what the world calls them. (The UN represents a consensus. You might not like it but it is, in many ways, the voice of the world. If it agrees to call the territories occupied, and you are in dispute with them, you are POV not it. I fear the anti-UN propaganda of the Bush administration has led people to forget that the UN is not a body separate from the world, but one that the world is party to.) It's an emotive issue, I know, and one on which practically everyone has a standpoint that is not particularly neutral. And I'm not suggesting that the consensus view is right necessarily. But as it stands this article is laughable. How would you feel about an article about Israel that began by suggesting that Israeli nationalists and the UN consider it a nation but in fact it was stolen from the Arabs? (You might agree with those who suggest that an article could include that viewpoint, but I'm sure that you would not feel it was an appropriate way to introduce the article, specifically because it is not consensual.)Dr Zen 10:16, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In light of the vigorous consensus-building and dispute resolution attempts in Talk sections of articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict, I am removing the NPOV tags. If someone has a any further problems not already covered in Talk, they should start a new section and bring forth their concerns. These perpetual NPOV tags are unreasonable.--A. S. A. 12:26, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Chunk of text

Often people refer to non-sovereign lands which are within the traditional boundaries of "Palestine", but outside of the generally recognized borders of Jordan and Israel, as being "Palestinian territories". As mentioned above, since the late 1990s, this has included most of the Gaza Strip and large sections of the West Bank.

• This usage tends to convey a complex of ideas, chiefly the view that (1) there exists a Palestinian people who (2) deserve their own homeland which (3) ought to include Gaza and West Bank.

• Adherents of this point of view or users of this definition commonly use the term "occupied Palestinian territories" (see article).

Hey, this is rather good. This should be in the introduction instead of the ridiculously POV thing that is there now! This is the common view of what the territories are and should lead the article. Yes, the article must include minority views, but the minority views should not be highlighted in a way that makes it seem that Wikipedia endorses them. Dr Zen 00:34, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If you think what I wrote is both accurate and unbiased, please add it to the introduction. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 13:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Great article

I'm new to Wikipedia and so I'm looking around at various articles trying to get my bearings. I just want to say here that this article is one of the best, if not the best, I've read so far. The writing is great; it's clear, informative, and it's fair (to my eyes, anyway), which is a Herculean task given the subject matter. Congrats to the person or people who did the bulk of the work. This is a worthy standard for any Wiki editor to aim for. Slim 08:51, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)