Talk:Palestine (region)

were the jewish population higher in 1914 than in 1922 ??

it isnt even a country, why is there an article, someone show me where palestine is on a map please!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr spork32 (talk • contribs) 04:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't a country. It is the historical name of the land on which Israel and the Palistinian Authority is found. The Palestinian Authority is recognised by roughly 100 nations, and is an observer nation to the UN. A map of the of that is here. And something does not have to be a country to be found on a map. 'Utah' isn't a country, neither is 'Siberia' or the 'Thames', yet one can still identify them on a map. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.41.42 (talk) 19:35, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Mr Spork, this area is not for discussion of the subject of the article, but discussion of the article itself. Political opinions are not appropriate. nut-meg (talk) 07:45, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

according to the figures here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine#Demographics_in_the_late_Ottoman_and_British_Mandate_periods the jewish pop where 94.000 in 1914 and only 84.000 in 1922. I find that a bit hard to believe. According to Justin McCarthy there were about 59,000 Jews in Palestine in 1914, and 657.000 Muslim Arabs, and 81.000 Christian Arabs.--Ezzex (talk) 16:42, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Yehoshua Porath credits the population decrease on WWI, famine, disease, and expulsion by the Ottoman Turks, in "The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement, 1918-1929," pg. 17. (pub. 1974)

Unlike the European Jewry moving into Palestine, many Palestinian Jews (Yishuv) were about as dirt-poor as the Arab Fellahin.

Actually, Jordan is also part of historic Palestine. That's changes the whole story now, doesn't it? Jordan is occupying Palestinian land. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.101.34 (talk) 19:46, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

States that legally recognize the West Bank and Gaza as the Country, or "State of Palestine"

Many countries, including the United States, have diplomatic ties with the Palestinian Authority, and have recognized the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza as a "Country" for legal, economic, and political purposes. Dozens of other States have gone one step further and legally recognized that same national entity as the "State of Palestine". There have also been published reports of Israeli's who have accepted Palestinian citizenship and passports. see Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim takes Palestinian citizenship.

All of that information is notable and applies to the "Current Status" section of this article, since it is NOT a proposal. An edit summary which simply claims that "there is no such place" is fatuous and unsupportable for the following reasons:

• Legal Decisions Respecting Recognition and Rights of States

In the public international law of the Americas, recognition is strictly a bilateral agreement between two states. The parties to the Montevideo Convention On Rights and Duties of States, and the Charter of the Organization of American States have a conventional agreement that:

Recognition implies that the State granting it accepts the personality of the new State, with all the rights and duties that international law prescribes for the two States.

Last year the Forward Magazine reported that the Palestinian Authority had been working to expand the number of States that recognize Palestine as a Country. The State of Costa Rica went a step further, and opened diplomatic relations with the "State of Palestine". See Costa Rica Opens Official Ties With ‘State of Palestine’. Article 2 of The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations stipulates that the establishment of diplomatic relations between States, and of permanent diplomatic missions, takes place by mutual consent, so this wasn't merely a unilateral declaration on the part of the State of Costa Rica. The Palestinian Authority accepted the duties and obligations of a State when it signed the agreement.

There have been many other published, verifiable reports from WP:RS sources which explain that dozens of States in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe have recognized the country of Palestine as the "State of Palestine" too. For example, Palestinian Justice Minister Ali Kashan filed war crimes complaints against Israel with the International Criminal Court last January. Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki announced that he had submitted documents to the ICC which proved Palestine was recognized as a "legal state" by 67 other countries, with the corresponding right under international law to accept the jurisdiction of the court, and request an investigation. see ICC prosecutor considers ‘Gaza war crimes’ probe.

The power to legally recognize any entity as a state is vested exclusively in other States. Disgruntled Wikipedia editors, Op-Ed pundits, and private political action committees have no legal standing to contest the matter. UNESCO's volume on International law explains:

there is no definition binding on all members of the community of nations regarding the criteria for statehood, and as long as there is no organ which could in casu reach a binding decision on this matter, the decision as to the statehood of an entity depends upon the other members of the community of nations. The governments of various states are the organs responsible for reaching individual decisions in a given case. The decision-making is called the recognition of states. The term signifies the decision of the government of an already existing State to recognize another entity as a State. The act of recognition is in fact a legal decision which depends on the judgment of the recognizing government. see "IV Recognition of States", beginning on page 47 of International Law

• A Country with a well-defined territory

US law and regulations provide a legal definition of the term: 'Country. "Country" means the political entity known as a nation.' See for example, 19 C.F.R. PART 134.1 Definitions. The US State Department has determined that the West Bank and Gaza are a single political entity that satisfies that definition.

On October 24th, 1994, the Department of State advised the Department of the Treasury that, in view of certain developments including the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, the primary purpose of 19 U.S.C. 1304 would be best served if goods produced in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were permitted to be marked ‘‘West Bank’’ or ‘‘Gaza Strip.’’ US Customs acted on that advice from the Department of State, and made a determination regarding the ‘‘country of origin’’ for those goods for marking purposes. Customs notified the public in T.D. 95–25 that, unless excepted from marking, goods produced in the West Bank or Gaza Strip shall be marked as ‘‘West Bank,’’ ‘‘Gaza,’’ or ‘‘Gaza Strip.’’ The T.D. further stated that the country of origin markings of such goods shall not contain the words ‘‘Israel,’’ ‘‘Made in Israel,’’ ‘‘Occupied Territories-Israel,’’ or words of similar meaning.

The President subsequently declared duty-free treatment for products of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Presidential Proclamation 6955 dated November 13, 1996/ In a letter dated January 13, 1997, the Department of State advised the Department of the Treasury that the Palestinian Authority had asked that the U.S. accept the country of origin marking ‘‘West Bank/Gaza’’ so as to reaffirm the territorial unity of the two areas. The Department of State further advised that it considers the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be one area for political, economic, legal and other purposes. see DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY, Customs Service, T.D. 97–16, Country of Origin Marking of Products From the West Bank and Gaza.

The EU also considers the West Bank and Gaza to be a Country. see EU Neighborhood Policy, Country Report, Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The U.K. plans to introduce requirements to properly label West Bank produce for country of origin. A BBC report stated that

the British Government believes that Israeli settlements on occupied territory are illegal. So does every other government in the world, except for Israel. For that reason goods produced on settlements in the West Bank are not supposed to benefit from a free trade agreement between the EU and Israel. They are supposed to be subject to import duty. see Concern over Israel settlement exports

Nothing prevents individual States from recognizing that country, or political entity, as a State.harlan (talk) 14:16, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

States can choose to recognize whatever political body they choose, but the fact remain that there is no Palestinians State. There's a weak autonomy over a small area, which changes constantly. This supposed state doesn't have control over currency, borders, airspace, maritime region, etc. It doesn't exercise the one condition which is the best characteristic of states - a monopoly over the use of force in its territory. Your quotes regarding the EU/UK do not show that they recognize "Palestine" as a state, but only that they do not accept the West Bank as a part of Israel - legally, they say, products from the West Bank can't enjoy the free trade agreements between Israel and the EU. Fine, but that says nothing about what the West Bank actually is.

Nope. Not yet a state. Not legally, and not practically. okedem (talk) 17:03, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Okedem, lets resolve one issue at a time. The Treasury Department issues announcements, rules, proposed rules, and legal notices in the Federal Register, an official U.S. government publication that is published daily by the National Archives and Records Administration. T.D. 97-16 was a legal notice which established the fact that the West Bank and Gaza are a legally recognized Country of Origin. The EU Country Report (at the link you deleted) states that the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and Gaza is part of the Euromed process, and that there is a bilateral autonomous Association Agreement with the EU that includes duty free trade with the Palestinian Territories.

Israel maintains it is not responsible for implementing the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the West Bank and Gaza, because those territories are located outside of Israel's sovereign territory and jurisdiction. see CCPR/C/ISR/2001/2

Naturally enough the BBC article explained that goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories don't qualify for customs exemptions under the Israeli agreement, because they are located outside of Israeli territory. Many States insist that a determination made by a competent organ of the United Nations to the effect that a situation is illegal cannot remain without consequences. Ha'aertz reports that the matter of customs fees is a legal crisis related to enforcement of the existing trade agreements. They are not a philosophical question that Israeli businesses can simply ignore. See Israel infuriated by U.K. plan to label West Bank produce. So yeah, Palestine includes two Countries, Israel, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Your personal opinions are really not appropriate subject matter for the talk page or the article. Please keep the discussion on topic and include verifiable published material from WP:RS sources. harlan (talk) 02:31, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I think Okedem is right.

Writing "a future Palestine State" has nothing pejorative and it is clear there is today no State named : Palestine

Ceedjee (talk) 17:37, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The matter is not so clear. There is no doubt that Palestine is legally a State in the legal systems of the significant number of states which recognize it. Wikipedia is not supposed to state something as a fact when there is a dispute; we should try to avoid the matter or be completely neutral about it. Cf " . . . the uncertainty within the international community as to the existence or non-existence of a State of Palestine".[1]. So I changed the lead, which is mainly about geographical usage.John Z (talk) 19:36, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the link with the '49 Geneva Convention ?

There is no uncertainty. Numerous countries recognize the Palestinian Authority as the official representative of the Palestinian People. Because there is a Palestinian Nation.

But we hear enough that there are discussions and debate between parties. Some argue for a One-State solution. Other for a Two-State. And there is still no solution. The argument : "A people without a state" sent back to pro-Israeli is also enough to illustrate this.

That somebody comes with a WP:OR to proove the contrary is not enough.

If there is a Palestinian State, WHERE IS IT ? Ceedjee (talk) 11:15, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, the Swiss government and the ICRC did see uncertainty - cf the phrase quoted above from the bottom of that page. (No direct connection to the 49 Geneva Convention) Where is the Palestinian State? - Arguably on the ground in whatever areas the PA/PLO/Hamas control. Unquestionably, on paper in various legal systems. Many countries do more than recognize the PLO as "the official representative of the Palestinian People" - Israel does that. They go further and recognize a State of Palestine, i.e. say the "State of Palestine" exists (legally, in their legal system). Regards,John Z (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind, that particular ICRC statement was made in 1989. The PLO had been declared the sole representative of the Palestinian people, but it was still a provisional government located in Tunisia at that time; The legal status of the ICRC is that of a registered Swiss private organization. Since it isn't a State, it cannot extend legal recognition to States. In the intervening years, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO permitting the establishment of a self-governing Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and Gaza. In 1999, the ICRC and the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions affirmed that Conventions apply, and that the territories are occupied, and Palestinian. In June 2006, at the 29th Conference of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the Israeli Magen David Adom (MDA) and Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) were recognized as National Societies. Article 4 of the Statutes of the Movement, reads as follows:

“In order to be recognized in terms of Article 5, paragraph 2 b) as a National Society, the Society shall meet the following conditions:

1. Be constituted on the territory of an independent State where the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field is in force.

2. Be the only National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society of the said State and be directed by a central body which shall alone be competent to represent it in its dealings with other components of the Movement.

3. Be duly recognized by the legal government of its country on the basis of the Geneva Conventions and of the national legislation as a voluntary aid society, auxiliary to the public authorities in the humanitarian field.

4. Have an autonomous status which allows it to operate in conformity with the Fundamental Principles of the Movement.

Ceedjee, there really is no WP:OR involved. Books on International law, and the law journals have been full of this material for years. Legal scholars have been writing about the existence of the State of Palestine since the 1997 Hebron agreement. see for example Palestine and the Law, by Musa Mazzawi,or John Quigley's revised and updated 2005 edition of The Case For Palestine. I'm simply compiling the facts found in those sources with related information from John Quigley's article on the Issue of Palestinian Statehood and the ICC in the Rutgers Law Record, the Forward magazine account, the Federal Register public notice, and etc. The mystery is how anything as well documented as this can be excluded from an article on the subject of Palestine. harlan (talk) 01:34, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll repeat myself - all matters of custom, etc, are irrelevant - all they say is that WB and Gaza are not part of the sovereign territory of Israel. That's true regardless of any self-rule in those areas. That was true the day the Six-Day War ended. Just because the territories aren't part of Israel, doesn't mean they're an independent state. Note all the commotion now about Netanyahu refusing the accept the two-state solution - if there were two states already, that would be meaningless. The PA does not exhibit the characteristics of a state, not de-facto, and definitely not de-jure. The fact that some states "recognize" it, to express their support, means nothing; just like the facts that some states refuse to recognize Israel doesn't mean that Israel isn't a country. okedem (talk) 10:40, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Okedem, don't bother repeating yourself, unless you have been published. This isn't a chat room. You keep giving us your own private opinions about so-called "facts", while ignoring notable published opinions from competent legal representatives of sovereign States. They represent hundreds of millions of people who have a very different view of the situation. Substantial coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject constitutes verifiable evidence of notability see WP:NOTE. We are well beyond that point in this situation. There are dozens of countries that have recognized "Palestine" as an existing Country or State with the right to self-government. It has been that way for more than twenty years, and "There's no two ways about it." We are all subject to the same general I/P sanctions. The guidance that I've read from Arbcom recognized the fact that attempts to control information itself is an integral part of the Israeli-Arab conflict. I'm going to be bold and edit this article as if the policy contained in WP:NOTCENSORED applies, and see what happens.

Statehood of a Country is an international legal status. It is conferred on a reciprocal basis by any member of the group of other political entities that already enjoy that status. Only states can recognize other states. The fact that Israel demanded that the Palestinian entity recognize it as a Jewish State, and granted it self-government over populated areas, means that it has already been dealing with Palestine as another State. That's why there's a uproar over Netanyahu's remarks. Recognition is unconditional and irrevocable, and that act constituted tacit recognition. A non-derogable or inalienable right cannot be subjected to acceptance by a third party: 'As regards the principle of the right of peoples to self-determination, the Court observes that the existence of a "Palestinian people" is no longer in issue. Such existence has moreover been recognized by Israel in the exchange of letters of 9 September 1993 between Mr. Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Mr. Yitzhak Rabin, lsraeli Prime Minister.' See paragraph 118 of the ICJ Adivisory Opinion, The Palestine Declaration to the International Criminal Court: The Statehood Issue, John Quigley, Rutgers Law Record and Articles 6 and 7 of the Montevideo Convention.

Recognition of the State of Palestine by other States is neither solely, nor exclusively, a matter falling within Israel's domestic jurisdiction,or the authority of the so-called "Quartet". The Palestinian people, Palestinian government, and West Bank-Gaza territories are all located beyond Israel's own sovereign territory and jurisdiction (by its own written admission).

International law is the standard of conduct for relations between States. Some international law norms protect State interests (e.g. respect for territorial integrity), while others protect human persons (e.g. prohibition of apartheid). see Barcelona Traction, (Belgium v. Spain). Israel uses a set of formalistic arguments to avoid the application of either. It says that Palestine is not yet entitled to the legal protections afforded to it through recognition by other states, and that international humanitarian law only applies selectively in these (admittedly) foreign territories on a "de facto", but not a "de jure" basis. The community of nations has repeatedly declared that situation to be flagrantly unlawful. The moment that Palestine was recognized by other States the legal principles of the UN Charter became applicable. Those legal principles were codified in the DECLARATION ON PRINCIPLES OF INTERNATIONAL LAW CONCERNING FRIENDLY RELATIONS AND CO-OPERATION AMONG STATES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS.

The four criteria outlined in article 1 of the Montevideo Convention are only desiderata. The Convention uses the term "shall" more than a dozen times, but NOT in article 1. It says "The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and capacity to enter into relations with the other states." I've supplied several publications on international law which explain that those are not legally binding criteria. The terms "sovereign" and "independent" do not appear in the Montevideo Convention, in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the U.S Constitution, the so-called Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 USC, Part IV, Chapter 97, or article 4 of the UN Charter. That's because those abstract notions are legally irrelevant to the existence or recognition of States. Australia was established as a colony. Chief Justice Evatt of the Australian High Court (and Chairman of the original UN Ad Hoc Committee on the Palestinian Question) summed it up best, "Sovereignty is neither a question of fact, nor a question of law, but a question that does not arise at all. What does arise is always a question whether a given authority may lawfully perform some act within the mandated territory or affecting it." International Law and the Protection of Namibia's Territorial Integrity: Boundaries and Territorial Claims, page 40 The agreement on self-government granted municipal jurisdiction to the Palestinian Authority.

The reason there's an uproar over customs is because taxes are never irrelevant. The ancient Kingdom of Israel and the United States of America were both founded as the result of tax revolts. Famed international jurist Sir Hersch Lauterpacht's first professional opinion was written at the request of the Jewish Agency for Palestine. It discussed the legal status of the country for the purposes of applying for most favored nation trading status with League of Nations member states, and the British Crown's Royal Preferences system. see International law, By Hersch Lauterpacht, and Elihu Lauterpacht. harlan (talk) 18:16, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, you're not making a coherent case here. Rights (self-determination, etc) have nothing to do with this discussion. We're not talking about what ought to be, but about what actually is. De-facto there is no Palestinian State. Not de-jure either, as Israel is the military sovereign (and constantly criticized for the being the occupying power), all the authority of the PA stems from the agreements with Israel, granting it some level of autonomy. An autonomous region is not a state. It has no legal authority of its own, and certainly exercises few to no powers. Your claims on taxes are, again, irrelevant. All the evidence you've presented shows that the territories aren't considered a part of Israel, but that's true for any timepoint, including the day after the 1967 war. okedem (talk) 19:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, you are the one who is not very coherent. This talk page and the archives are full of ad hominem attacks, attempts to bully other editors, and good old fashioned information suppression on this topic. I've asked you several times to stop posting your personal opinions, and to provide citations to published and verifiable material that can be used to improve the article. You say the Israeli military is the sovereign of the occupied territories, but the Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that the military commander is NOT the sovereign of those territories. see HCJ 7957/04 Mara’abe v. The Prime Minister of Israel. You say an autonomous region is not a state, but autonomous regions have long been recognized under customary international law as a type of State with restricted or limited sovereignty. In the case of Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel, April 3, 2006, the Jerusalem District Court admitted that the Palestinian Authority meets the legal criteria for statehood: see J'lem court: Palestinian Authority meets criteria to be classed as a sovereign state. The Supreme Court heard the appeal, in Mis. Civ. P. (Jer) 1008/06, Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel [April 3, 2006] and didn't disagree with the facts or the law, but held that the legal authority to recognize another State resides in the political branch, and should be handled by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, not by the Courts. Prime Minister Netanyahu proposed the creation of a autonomous region with limited sovereignty that he calls a Palestinian State. Surely then, the possible existence of such a state is well beyond dispute by you or anyone else on this talk page. The Prime Minister explained why Israel is withholding recognition, but none of the considerations he mentioned negate the legal recognition that other states have already extended to Palestine.

In their relations with other peoples during the colonial era the Concert of Europe adopted a fundamental legal principle that the supreme legal authority, or "sovereignty", lay outside the indigenous nations. The native populations were deemed to be savages devoid of any rights "civilized" nations were required to recognize or respect. That situation resulted in the creation of a large number of dependent states with restricted sovereignty or limited autonomy. See Talk:List of sovereign states in 1919#Types of Restricted Sovereignty and of Colonial Autonomy for a long list of non-sovereign "States". There have always been examples of nominally sovereign and independent states that were forced to accede to treaties that made them dependencies of their more powerful neighbors. That sort of situation was recognized as an abuse of power by the 1860s, and in the modern era it was addressed by Chapter XI of the UN Charter. See sections 8, 9, and 10 on pages 187 and 188 for a discussion on mid 19th century legal norms: International Law, By Henry Wager Halleck

Various terms were used to describe different types of dependent states, such as condominium, mandate, protectorate, colony, and vassal state. After World War II there was strong international pressure to eliminate dependencies associated with colonialism. Israel has a binding legal obligation under Chapter XI of the UN Charter to assist the Palestinians achieve their independence and exercise their right to self-determination. See American Law Encyclopedia Vol 3, Dependent States, The Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories, in Chapter XI of the UN Charter, and The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV).

The US has given public notice that the State Department already considers the West Bank and Gaza as a political, economic, and legal entity that constitutes a country. In his 4 June 2009 Cairo address, President Obama said "Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's." harlan (talk) 11:11, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, you're simply filling the page with red-herrings and irrelevant claims. The European Colonialism mention is irrelevant here, as is the court case. "Right to exist" does not imply existence, but only "right to exist". If there already was a state, there wouldn't be any pressure on Israel to agree to the "two state solution". No one would be bothered when Netanyahu offers a future, possible, demilitarized state. The pressure would be, perhaps, to give the state more territory etc; not to allow for its very existence. Reality clearly flies in the face of your claims. No matter how hard you wish it, no Palestinian State yet exists. okedem (talk) 19:37, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You have an incurable case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Under customary international law the existence of a state does not depend on recognition by other states, or the absence of occupying forces. The British didn't go home on 4 July 1776, but that's still Independence Day in the US. The numerical majority of states have exercised their legal prerogative to recognize the existence of the State of Palestine, and the legitimate sovereignty of the Palestinian people over their territory. You have the right to include references to verifiable published sources that support your point of view. You don't have the right to issue no edit orders to other editors, or to delete material that represents opposing views from notable sources that are considered credible and verifiable. Most commentators say the pressure that is being applied to Israel is the result of its failure to observe international norms, freeze settlements, withdraw from the occupied territories, or fulfill its international obligations with respect to the refugees. harlan (talk) 20:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

John Quigley's article on the Issue of Palestinian Statehood and the ICC

In the many documents given by Harlan Wilkerson here above, there is this article John Quigley's article on the Issue of Palestinian Statehood and the ICC it is written :

In 1988, statehood was declared for Palestine by its representative body, the Palestine National Council. It was that declaration that provided the basis for the approaches both to the W.H.O. and to the Government of Switzerland. The 1988 statehood declaration proclaimed “the establishment of the State of Palestine in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem.”[20]. As a result of the declaration, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat was invited to address the UN General Assembly.[21] The General Assembly then adopted a resolution in which it "acknowledg[ed] the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988," and, further, decided that "the designation 'Palestine' should be used in place of the designation 'Palestine Liberation Organization' in the United Nations system."[22] One hundred and four states voted for this resolution, forty-four abstained; only the United States and Israel voted against.[23]

It refers to the GA resolution 43/177, U.N. GAOR, 43d Sess., U.N. Doc. A/RES/43/177 (Dec. 15, 1988), available here.

This resolution states indeed that :

The General Assembly (...) Acknowledges the proclamation of the State of Palestine by the Palestine National Council on 15 November 1988.

So, even if WP:IDONTLIKEIT because it is particular to acknowledge the proclamation of a State without precise borders (we just know they are inside the former Palestine), that's it : a Palestinian State exist. (NB: GA didn't acknowledge the choice of Jerusalem as capital).

Ceedjee (talk) 07:49, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

There is a national authority in the territories with municipal lawmaking powers, and Israel was instrumental in establishing it there. Despite the fact that the interim agreement expired, the Palestinian National Authority has continued exist. It has obtained international recognition and powers that were not envisioned in the Oslo accords. At the moment, there is a caretaker government in place, with a US-trained police force, and its own courts. Those are organs of State. Israel has intentionally created a situation where a "conflict of laws" exists by allowing settlers to live in the occupied zone and making its laws applicable to them on an extraterritorial basis. see the discussion on pages 117 and 118 under the heading "II Definition of State in the Conflict of Laws, Independent Definition for the Conflict of Laws", from New Political Entities in Public and Private International Law, By Amos Shapira.

The exact boundaries of the territory is a very well known fact. Israeli Arabs who marry Palestinians from the West Bank or Gaza Strip either have to move to the occupied territories, or live apart from their husband or wife. Israel taxes exports from Gaza, and collects customs duties on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority from products destined for the West Bank.

When disputes in the realm of private international law arise, Israeli Courts have no choice but to treat Palestinian Courts as organs of a foreign state, with a definite territorial jurisdiction. How else can Israeli Courts and Palestinian Courts handle enforcement of one another's civil judgments? In the case of Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel, April 3, 2006, the Jerusalem District Court admitted the obvious: see J'lem court: Palestinian Authority meets criteria to be classed as a sovereign state. The Supreme Court heard the appeal, in Mis. Civ. P. (Jer) 1008/06, Elon Moreh College Association v. The State of Israel [April 3, 2006] and didn't disagree with the facts or the law, but held that the legal authority to recognize another State resides in the political branch, and should be handled by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, not by the Courts.

Once again, it is a mystery to me why we even bother to discuss the notability of verifiable published accounts from WP:RS sources like this. harlan (talk) 16:34, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

The Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa (HSRC) Legal Study

A group of notable legal scholars and practitioners, including the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, concluded that Israel's practices in the Occupied territories of Palestine violate international law norms regarding colonialism and the crime of apartheid as defined in international law. Their published report is notable. It called on Israel to correct the situation, and suggested that an advisory opinion of the ICJ be urgently requested on the question. The crime of apartheid is an indictable offense, which is subject to universal jurisdiction in many other states.

This study was commissioned and coordinated by the Middle East Project (MEP) of the Democracy and Governance Program, a research program of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa, (HSRC). The HSRC is the state of South Africa's statutory research agency.

The Council conducted a 15-month long review of Israel's practices in the occupied territory of Palestine. The study was conducted by a team of international legal scholars from the law faculties of a number of institutions that are WP:RS sources: the Minerva Centre for Human Rights, Hebrew University (Jerusalem), the University of London's Middle East, School of Law, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (Johannesburg), the Center for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, and the Department of Foreign Affairs, Government of South Africa (Pretoria). Many legal practitioners from organizations such as Adalah – The Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, and Al-Haq (West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists) also consulted and contributed. harlan (talk) 01:37, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Not clear why of all the writing on the middle east this one should be mentioned. Did it have any influence? Mashkin (talk) 03:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The report was just released. It's a major scholarly resource that Arab human rights groups can use for legal advocacy. The US Supreme Court recently turned down an attempt to bar the South African Apartheid class action lawsuits. Those were filed under the US Alien Tort Act. The boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement can use this report in support of their campaign, and to assist Arab groups in filing complaints against corporations doing business with Israel. At the last policy conference AIPAC Executive Director, Howard Kohr, spoke about the success of the movement to impose sanctions on Israel, and said he was worried that it might fundamentally change US government policy. harlan (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

If it was just released, I suppose it has yet to have any real influence. Anyways, this is a very specific point, and even if this is a very important study, it still doesn't belong in such a broad-scoped article. okedem (talk) 17:36, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually it confirms the systematic failure to enforce international law in the territories. That fact had already been addressed in the Sasson report, the Yesh Din "Exceptions" report, and an article devoted to the case study of The Shooting of a Handcuffed, Blindfolded Palestinian Demonstrator, by Orna Ben-Naftali and Noam Zamir. It appeared in the Journal of International Criminal Justice. The EU conditioned the upgrade of its relations with Israel on democracy, basic human rights, improvements in the daily life of the Palestinian population, and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. see Council Conclusions Strengthening of the EU bilateral relations with its Mediterranean partners - upgrade with Israel. This article has a subsection devoted to Infrastructure and development during the Mandate era, it can accommodate some reporting on the current political climate. harlan (talk) 19:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Your comment did not address what I had said. First, the importance of this report is unclear. Second, I see no reason to report it specifically, when there are literally thousands of studies and opinions in this field. If you want to discuss some topic, it needs to be done using several sources explaining the varying views, not a single, one-sided, source. Third, as I said, this is way too specific for this article. The "Current status" section covers everything from 1948 to today in 8 paragraphs, and one research organization's opinion cannot receive an entire paragraph. The section already covers settlements and political status. Present the facts (settlements, etc), instead of some people's opinions of them. Mind you, this article never even mentions issues like terrorism (the main reason for many things Israel does, like checkpoints, the fence, etc). Hamas is never mentioned. This is just a bird's eye view, and opinions on specific issues don't belong here. okedem (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I've obliged, and added information about the multiple reports, the global BDS movement, and the EU and US statements about basic human rights and further colonization of the West Bank. Your personal preferences about what is "too specific" for an article on the subject of Palestine has nothing to do with any Wikipedia policy so far as I can see. You are just deleting a paragraph of well-sourced material that deals with the "Current Status". The "birds eye view" includes a discussion about Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi and that seems pretty specific.

Regarding one-sidedness, international law is the standard of conduct that states expect from one another. A broad consensus exists that Israel is violating peremptory norms. Individual states can't elect to simply ignore their obligation to comply with customary or criminal laws, and then complain when they are asked to correct the situation. harlan (talk) 21:18, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Overview on Colonialism and Apartheid

This is your bias - your turn every article into an international law one. Do not turn the article on Palestine into an article on what Israel is doing in the occupied territories. There are plenty of articles for that. Mashkin (talk) 04:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Harlan, there are enough article that can deal with the legality of settlements or Israel's actions in the territories. An article has a certain scope, and you're trying to skew that scope to allow for information of a certain kind. Not all sourced material can be written in every article. This is why why have more and more specific articles. This article is very bird's-eye, dealing with a region of land for several millenia. Now, unless you want to double that section with information about terrorism, you might like to acknowledge the idea of scope, and leave this one. okedem (talk) 07:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Since you mention it, I've looked through this talk page and the archives. I see no evidence of any consensus to support the proposition that this article can only discuss the geographical region. In any event the majority of the material is about ruling regimes. Everything after the advent of the 20th century is about the modern country and its partition.

Regarding my alleged bias concerning international law: The delegates of the First Zionist Congress said the aim of Zionism was the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, secured by public law. The 1856 Treaty of Paris declared that the Sublime Porte had been admitted to participate in the Public Law and System (Concert) of Europe. That system of law governed territorial accessions and the creation of new states.

After the Russo-Turkish Wars in 1878, Russia and the Ottoman Empire concluded the the Treaty of San Stefano. Because it modified the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1856, the other signatories called for a Congress to obtain its revision. The Treaty of Berlin of 1878 was the result. Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania were recognized as new independent states on condition that religious, political, and property rights were guaranteed on a nondiscriminatory basis.

The practice of securing protections for minority and religious communities in newly created states became a part of customary international law. During the Versailles Peace conference a single committee handled the creation of new states and minority rights. Here is Clemenceau's memo that was attached to the Polish Minority Rights Treaty:

This treaty does not constitute any fresh departure. It has for long been the established procedure of the public law of Europe that when a State is created, or when large accessions of territory are made to an established State, the joint and formal recognition of the Great Powers should be accompanied by the requirement that such States should, in the form of a binding International convention undertake to comply with certain principles of Government. In this regard I must recall for your consideration the fact that it is to the endeavors and sacrifices of the Powers in whose name I am addressing you that the Polish nation owes the recovery of its independence. It is by their decision that Polish sovereignty is being restored over the territories in question, and that the inhabitants of these territories are being incorporated into the Polish nation.... ...There rests, therefore, upon these Powers an obligation, which they cannot evade, to secure in the most permanent and solemn form guarantees for certain essential rights which will afford to the inhabitants the necessary protection, whatever changes may take place in the internal constitution of the Polish State.' Sovereignty, Stephen D. Krasner, Princeton University Press, 1999, ISBN 069100711X, page 92-93

The Zionist organization helped draft a "declaration of sympathy" for Zionist aspirations, and then arranged to have it incorporated into the terms of an international legal mandate. A year after the British Mandate went into effect, a member of the Zionist Executive publicly outlined the role it would play in establishing a system of separation and colonization. Jabotinsky said that the organization had nothing to offer the Palestinians, except an impenetrable iron wall of bayonets. He said that the Balfour Declaration and Mandate were intended to provide the conditions of security that would permit Zionist colonization without any interference from the Palestinians. He admitted that the Palestinians were a nation, and said the only purpose of colonization was to transform their national homeland into the Land of Israel. Similarly, David Ben Gurion wrote that he was in favor of partition because he didn't envision a partial Jewish state as the end of the process. He said that "What we want is not that the country be united and whole, but that the united and whole country be Jewish." He explained that a first-class Jewish army would permit the Zionists to settle in the rest of the country and complete the historic task of redeeming the entire land. That certainly corresponds to Raphael Lemkin's view that colonial regimes inherently set out to destroy the indigenous society and its people.

In 1947, the Jewish Agency based their demands for the creation of a Jewish State on international law. see Speeches by Jewish Agency representatives in the General Assembly, May 1947. One of the senior legal advisers of the Jewish Agency, Jacob Robinson, even published a book that explained the Zionist legal brief the Agency presented to the UN during the Emergency Session: "Palestine and the United Nations, Prelude to a Solution", Public Affairs Press, 1947 (reprinted by Greenwood Press, 1971- ISBN: 0837159865).

The UN Partition plan contained a minority rights treaty that is still in force today. It placed minority and religious rights in Palestine under the permanent protection of the United Nations. That subject and allegations of apartheid both were discussed during the US Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the legality of The Colonization Of The West Bank Territories By Israel in 1977. Two of the witnesses were experts in international law, Dr. Yehuda Blum and Dr W. Thomas Mallison. Dr. Blum disputed the Palestinian territorial claims on the basis of his "Missing Reversioner" legal theory. Dr. Mallision disputed Israel's claim on the basis of the legal requirements of the UN resolution. Dr. Israel Shahak testified that society in Israel and the occupied territories was based upon a system of apartheid. Dr. Mallison stated that territory was only allocated by the UN on condition that certain duties imposed upon each state to be established in Palestine were carried out. Among those legal obligations, section 10(d) of part IB was particularly important. It provided that each of the states to be set up in Palestine shall have a constitution which includes provisions: "Guaranteeing to all persons equal and nondiscriminatory rights in civil, political, economic, and religious matters and the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of religion, language, speech and publication, education, assembly, and association." Dr. Mallison stated:

In most civilized legal systems it is recognized that legal rights may only be exercised conditioned upon compliance with legal duties. The refusal of the State of Israel to comply with the nondiscriminatory requirements of the Palestine partition resolution, its main claim to title, puts in serious jeopardy its claim to legal title to the limited territory allocated to it by the resolution.

You say there are plenty of other articles for this information, but you don't explain why it's not appropriate to mention the governing regimes or the legal basis of the territorial claims to modern-day Palestine in this article. There are sections in it already that discuss the McMahon-Hussein and Sykes-Picot treaties, the League of Nations Mandate, the 1949 Armistice Agreements, and the UN Partition plan. Those are all relevant international legal instruments and undertakings. Please review Wikipedia:NPOV tutorial#Information suppression, because I'd like to include the jist of this information. harlan (talk) 13:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've already explained why. Posting yet another 8kb comment won't change this - not every article can deal with everything. There are specific articles for these issues. Don't try to turn this one into yet another discussion of Israel's wrong-doings. okedem (talk) 19:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The article already discusses these issues. The Mandate and UN Partition Plan are most certainly about the modern country of Palestine to boot. You seem to be ordering me not to edit this article in a certain way. That looks like a "no edit order, or Wikipedia:WikiBullying to me. There is very little left to discuss. A truckload of legal scholars and Zionist officials have written extensively about issues that are mentioned in this article, and their published views are not represented at all. harlan (talk) 21:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

First, there is no "modern country of Palestine", so your comment is already false. But beyond that - the last 61 years are covered in a single section, of 8 short paragraphs. The occupation of the territories, and the establishment of multiple settlements, are mentioned. The entire last paragraph is devoted to the status of the PLO. That's enough. You want to delve into the details of the legal status, and this simply isn't the article for it. okedem (talk) 07:38, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

You are certainly entitled to your private opinion about the status of statehood, but I don't think you are entitled to spoil the editing environment or delete well-sourced article content on that basis. The talk pages and archives contain dozens of requests that this article be treated in the same manner as the articles on other countries, like the State of Israel. That article does not begin with 100K of anachronistic stone age history. If this article gets too long, then I propose that the ancient history be moved into separate articles. In some cases those articles already exist under much more appropriate names.

During his previous term as Prime Minister, Mr. Netanyahu warned that a unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood would stop the peace process. After years of delay and the recent attacks on Gaza, the Palestinian authorities went ahead and made a formal declaration of statehood to the International Criminal Court. They also provided bilateral declarations that proved dozens of other states had already recognized the State of Palestine. The Prosecutor's Office website says their officials are currently conducting a preliminary analysis of situations in a number of countries - including Palestine. see ICC - Palestine. Those facts are really no longer debatable.

The international community of nations deals with Palestine on the assumption that either a de facto or de jure partition has occurred. It also assumes that Palestine is the legitimate sovereign in at least some of the territory of the pre-partition era country of Palestine. Recognition does not require that there be formal declarations or certainty about the borders of a state. Israel is also recognized by many states, although its borders are not defined, and its own territorial claims are widely discounted. The bottom line is: that there are millions of Palestinians; they have their own national authorities; they own land and property; Israel has stated that they legally reside in territory beyond its sovereign jurisdiction; and nothing in the world prevents other states from recognizing that political, economic, and legal entity as the State of Palestine. You can read all about that in the Rutgers Law review article and in the other publications I've mentioned. If you'd like to keep this fruitless discussion going, then I suggest we move it into dispute resolution or Arbcom. harlan (talk) 14:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Again, this article isn't about any state or country. Palestine is the name of the geographical region now containing the State of Israel, the Israeli-occupied territories/PA-administered territory, and, to some extent, Jordan. The very first words of this article are: "This article is about the geographical area", "Palestine...is a name which has been widely used since Roman times to refer to the region that was earlier called Judea, which spreads between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River... In its broader meaning as a geographical term".

Until 1948, this entire region was called Palestine. This article is about the region. Since the region also inhabits Israel, this article cannot be about just the supposed Palestinian State. If it is about that state, then, pray tell, where is the article about the geographical region?

No. This is not the appropriate article for the material you want to push, and your claim that this article should be about the Palestinian State is absurd. There's an article for that, and it is the right place for these legal discussions. okedem (talk) 16:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

There's already a disambiguation page, and there are separate articles on the British Mandate of Palestine, the State of Israel, Canaan, Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), and etc.

The article Proposals for a Palestinian State says that over 100 countries have already recognized the State of Palestine and entered into bilateral relations. That information presents the reader with a logical contradiction. It makes Wikipedia look fairly inept. I'm willing to bet the idea get's tossed-out during the "laugh test" portion of the Good article review process. The archives show that particular article is the result of a series of acrimonious "scope" arguments and some malicious page moves, page merges, and page deletions. That's why I'm going to ignore any unofficial determinations regarding "scope". I'd rather put my efforts into improving this article.

I'd suggest that Proposals for a Palestinian state be renamed in any event. The zero sum nature of the territorial concessions involve two states, not one. It's really just an article about the proposed partition of the "geographical area". harlan (talk) 19:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The name of Proposals for a Palestinian state is a matter to be discussed elsewhere, but this article is about the area, just like the article North America is about the continent, and not about the US or Canada. Seeing as this region was known by the name Palestine for some 2,000 years, that takes precedence over some possibly-existing state that might be over some of it for a few years, and maybe just in the future. If anything, if you want this article to be about a country, it should be about Israel, as that's the country that's been in this region for 61 years, over a larger portion of it than the PA, and with no dispute over its existence. okedem (talk) 19:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I pointed out earlier that Wikipedia policy says no one owns the articles or the term "Palestine". I've gotten tired of the merry-go-round nature of the discussion with you. If you want to add material from a reliable published source that's fine, but your attempts to issue "no edit orders" leave me underwhelmed. harlan (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Don't twist this around. I never gave any "no edit order", and you know it. What I said was that you're trying to add information way beyond the scope of this article. In fact, you're trying to change it completely. For that, you'll have to get consensus here, to turn this article into one about the supposed state, instead of the region. okedem (talk) 21:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

why we shouldn't quote Sachar on population

Howard Sachar's book on page 87 says the Arab population in 1881 was 470,000. On page 167 he says in 1882 the Arab population "barely reached 260,000". Did 210,000 people leave or die in one year? Also on page 167 he says "the increase between 1922 and 1946 was 118 percent, a rate of almost 5 percent annually" but 118 percent in 24 years is only about 3.5 percent annually. Then he makes, perhaps as a result of this mistake, an unsourced claim about immigration. Clearly Sachar has his numbers all in a knot and quoting him on population is silly. Zero^talk 14:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC) Zero^talk 10:39, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew name of the country ארץ ישראל

Some time back there was a long discussion about this. THE Hebrew name of the COUNTRY -- not the future name of the future state -- is ארץ ישראל . This is true for any form of Hebrew for more than 2000 years. The easiest way to check is to click on the link for "'ivrit/עברית" on the left of the article "Palestine". the complicated way is to read the discussion in the archives.

If anyone has a new (or good) argument against puting the proper Hebrew name at the beginning of the article (instead one of two common transcriptions of the Latin name), I am eager to read it. 85.178.115.110 (talk) 06:29, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think there's an easy way to check if what you say makes any sense. Go over to Land of Israel and insert the text "Arabic: فلسطين‎ Filasṭīn" into the tranlation bracket in the first sentence. Then come back and tell us what happened next. --FormerIP (talk) 10:11, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I should probably add, to avoid any uncertainty as to whether I'm being rhetorical or not: No, actually, don't do that under any circumstances.--FormerIP (talk) 10:23, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I restored the most commonly used name in Hebrew (ארץ־ישראל) to the opening paragraph, and left the less-common, antiquated, name (פלשתינה) as a secondary version. If anyone needs examples from modern literature (and other places) where "ארץ־ישראל" is used as the Hebrew equivalent of "Palestine" (or vice versa), I can provide a few. -- uriber (talk) 16:54, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Palestine is a Country situated in the Geographical area called Palestine

Okedem, Palestine is a Country situated in the geographical and historical area called Palestine. That is a notable and verifiable published fact. It is the homeland of an internationally recognized Nation. This article mentions the other countries (the British Mandate and Israel) and their associated categorizes, like Zionism. There is no valid reason not to mention the country or state of Palestine and its associated categories. Continued attempts to delink the articles and categories without obtaining a consensus from the members of the Palestine Project, or the Outline of Knowledge Project seem pretty dubious. You continue to make edits that are vouched only by your own personal say-so, although you have been repeatedly asked to provide verifiable published sources to support your edits. NPOV says that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by a verifiable source, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each. Your personal opinion has been given WP:UNDUE weight.

Recognition is a legal status. The published sources that I cited do not say that the State of Palestine was "partially recognized", so they do not support your WP:Synth revision.

The State of Israel agreed that the West Bank and Gaza would be treated as a single territorial unit as part of the Declaration of Principles (“DOP”) on Interim Self-Government. The US government granted a request from the Palestinian National Authority for recognition of the West Bank and Gaza as a country in view of developments which included the Israeli-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements. The Department of State advised the other agencies of the Executive branch that the West Bank and Gaza Strip were considered one area for political, economic, legal and other purposes. That policy is reflected in Title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations, but it was not limited solely to the sphere of tax collections.

The US Library of Congress (LOC) lists the Occupied Territories, West Bank, and Gaza as a Nation. The LOC's Multinational Legal Guides lists the jurisdiction as "Palestine" and provides information on the Constitutional history back to the mandate era in "Constitutions of Dependencies & Special Sovereignties", 1975 (with supplements through 2008).

Many parastatial and international organizations followed the DOP guidelines and recognized the territory as a country. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has established .ps as the top-level country-code for "Palestinian Territory, Occupied". The ISO Maintenance Agency lists the country name and country elements as "Palestinian Territory, Occupied", Alpha-2 code "PS", Alpha-3 code PSE, numeric code 275. The International Olympic Commission and FIFA formulate their own codes and names that differ from the ISO codes in many cases. The IOC has recognized the National Olympic Committee of "Palestine", Country Code "PSE", since 1996. The FIFA Integration Guidelines, Country and Confederation codes, lists "Palestine" and "PLE". harlan (talk) 14:45, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Your supposed sources don't say what you claim they do, or say the opposite. You cherry-pick dubious sources (a graduate thesis, for instance) to show what you want (even when they really don't support your claim).

I say again - there's an article (even several) concerning the supposed state/country - Proposals for a Palestinian State, State of Palestine, Palestinian territories. This article is about a geographical region, home to at least one country (Israel), and possibly more (Palestinian State, by your view; maybe also Jordan by some definitions). Thus, it cannot belong to any category of countries, much like Central America cannot. We don't have a single country category here, and there's no reason to.

Any discussion of the supposed state belongs in the relevant article, and the placing of the "Arabic speaking countries" category can be considered in those articles, not this one.

And just to counter your claims - if there really was a Palestinian State, there wouldn't be any pressure on Israel to agree to the "two-state solution"; there wouldn't be a need to pressure Israel to move towards the creation of such a state. Partially recognized is obvious - many countries don't recognize it, including the UN. Your own sources (like the customs one you so like) doesn't mention any "Palestinian State", but simply a region.

Enough of this. Stop pushing your own views into every single article here. okedem (talk) 16:00, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The UN does not recognize states, that is something that is reserved for other states. nableezy - 16:13 10.07.2009 (UTC)

I've provided more than enough sources that say there is already a legally recognized country, nation, and state of Palestine located in the Occupied territory of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The proposals for a final settlement don't alter that legal status. This article discusses the geography and political history of that region. Those are published facts, not my personal views. If any of my sources say the opposite, then you ought to be able to provide at least one published cite in support of your POV. The US government granted a request from the Palestinian National Authority for recognition of the West Bank and Gaza as a country. Published accounts say that those same authorities claim that region is "Palestine", and that it is a legally recognized state. See ICC prosecutor considers ‘Gaza war crimes’ probe. That's notable and third-party verifiable. You can hardly accuse me of cherry picking sources, when you don't cite any pertinent sources that I've overlooked.

The UN does not have a direct role in the recognition of states. At the same time it cannot legally ignore the existence of one, once 140 of its members have acknowledged its declaration of independence. The ICJ indicated that Israel had already tacitly recognized the representatives of the Palestinian people, and mentioned a bilateral agreement in that connection. The ICJ took notice of Israel's claim that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights did not apply in the occupied territories. Israel had reported that they were not subject to its sovereign territory and jurisdiction. The court nonetheless said that Article 12 paragraph 1 applied in the occupied territories, i.e. because the Palestinians "are lawfully within the territory of a state". see paragraph 128. Legal Consequences of the construction of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

I didn't invent the idea of indexing Wikipedia through the Outline of Knowledge, develop the Outline for Palestine, or come up with the idea of indexing and linking pages of Palestine-related articles. None of that is going to just go away because you object. The text of this article mentions several other countries, and it is relevant to the history and geography of the nation and country of Palestine.

For your information, I've listed the Palestine article on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Current Article Issues and explained that a few editors keep deleting well-sourced material and replacing it with nothing more than unreferenced and unverifiable personal opinions.

I had already mentioned this issue on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel Palestine Collaboration/Placename guidelines page which is being watched by the ARBCOM committee - and I've requested that an IPCOLL WikiProject be established to resolve this specific issue. harlan (talk) 18:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Enough of this. You seem set on not understanding what I'm saying, and focusing on irrelevant claims. You cannot place a country category here, and I've explained why. This is about a region, not a country. Any other discussions regarding a possible country belong elsewhere, not here. Once you recognize this, then we can move on to discussions about the status of the Palestinian territories.

The ICC article only mentions a Palestinian official's claim, nothing more. I've said this before, and will say it again - you're cherry-picking sources, and over-interpreting them. A simple customs directive is not recognition, and doesn't even specify any "Palestine", "State of Palestine", etc. It just lists the factual place of origin, doesn't recognize any state. If the US wants to recognize a state, it'll do it for real, not in a custom's directive. If you want to find real scholarly sources (not dissertations; real experts), that's fine, but don't pick irrelevant sources because they suit your claims. The dissertation source didn't even conclude it's a country, so that's useless anyway. You have yet to provide any real, scholarly, source concluding that there is such a state. If you want low-importance sources - here two for you, saying it's not a state - [2], [3]. And I add, that sovereignty is in contradiction of the Oslo Accords (see also [4]). okedem (talk) 18:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Okedem, about.com and Kavitha Giridhar have no legal standing to recognize states. I've given you cites from government sources that do have that authority, but you've ignored those. You have also introduced a genetic fallacy into the discussion in the form of "my dissertation source". That reference has been in the lede ever since the 4th of April of 2008, when User:Tiamat added it to the article.Diff She only used it to illustrate the fact that "Today, Palestine can also be used to refer to the State of Palestine, an entity recognized by over 100 countries in the world, whose boundaries have yet to be determined." The author of the dissertation has an LLM degree and he was quoting a snippet from a peer-reviewed law journal article written by Professor Francis Boyle. He was the legal adviser to the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Provisional Government of Palestine: "Francis A. Boyle, The Creation of the State of Palestine, Eur J Int Law 1: 301-306". Boyle is a Professor of Law, A.B. University of Chicago; A.M., J.D., Ph.D. Harvard University. He also obtained a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. A quick check of the Oxford Journals (Google the phrase The Creation of the State of Palestine Francis A. Boyle Over 114 states have already recognized the newly proclaimed state of Palestine) reveals that Tiamat erred on the side of caution.

Many editors think that the PNA doesn't claim to be a state. The ICC articles prove that they do claim to be a state. The articles also say the Prosecutor was not willing to investigate, until he received the bilateral agreements from 67 other countries that have recognized the state of Palestine. The country outlines were moved to article space in May. The Outline for Palestine is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries. That's not my doing. The Federal Code defines the term Country, and the US government does legally recognize the West Bank and Gaza as a country as a direct result of developments stemming from the Interim Self-Government agreement with the PNA. The ICC article mentions that the PNA officials call it Palestine, and that they say it is a legally recognized state.

Many governments have a declared policy of making no express declarations of recognition. There is no legal requirement for the US government to make any either. see pages 3-4 of Recognition of governments in international law, By Stefan Talmon Despite that fact, many articles on Wikipedia jump to the unwarranted conclusion that very few states recognized the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank. That's WP:Synth.

Declassified records in the public domain revealed long ago that the United States accepted the principles of the Jericho Conference resolutions. That Palestinian conference explicitly adopted the principle of Jordanian sovereignty over Central Palestine and a union with Jordan. Both the US and UK approved of the incorporation of the bulk of Arab Palestine in Jordanian territory. See the discussion at Talk:Palestinian people#Jordan not a "newly created state" After the Jordanian Parliament adopted a resolution forming a union between Central Palestine and Jordan, the US advised the British and French Foreign Ministers that the US approved, and that "it represented a logical development of the situation which took place as a result of a free expression of the will of the people."

The US government didn't announce that fact publicly because it wanted to avoid any direct involvement in inter-Arab and inter-Jewish community disputes. Bernadotte had been assassinated, and Mr. Eban observed the "striking coincidence" that nearly every Arab leader who dealt with Israel in the Armistice negotiations ended up being assassinated - Nokrashy in Egypt, Zaim in Syria, Riad Solh in Lebanon, and Abdullah in Transjordan. harlan (talk) 20:35, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You wrote 4 long paragraphs, but failed to address most of what I said. I'm getting a sense of deja-vu. Forget the country/no country issue for a second. This article is about a geographical region, not a country. If the name is confusing to you, think about articles with the same name, but different topics (when we use disambiguation pages). Thus, it cannot be part of any country category. If you want the categorize anything as "arabic speaking country", the State of Palestine article would be much closer, and there the discussion might be about whether it's fully a country yet. You did not show that the federal government recognizes anything, other than the need for a name on goods from the West Bank or Gaza, for which it chose the geographically descriptive and accurate "West Bank/Gaza", and not any supposed "State of Palestine". You believe this constitutes political recognition - good for you, but that's OR, which is forbidden, as I'm sure you know. If actual sources would build a case for statehood, and use this as evidence, that's fine. But not us. You need to provide good sources saying that a State of Palestine exists, not cite what you think is evidence to that end. okedem (talk) 20:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

If you believe that would you favor moving this article to "Palestine (region)" and having a disambig page for "Palestine" linking to "State of Palestine" and "Palestine (region)"? nableezy - 21:04 10.07.2009 (UTC)

Most definitely not. That would be rewritting history. The name "Palestine" has been used to refer to this region for some 2,000 years, and still does today. The name "Palestine" for a state is used by only some people, for only a few years. The main article is obviously the one about the region, and to prevent confusion, we have a link at the top of it to the political meaning. okedem (talk) 21:24, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You keep saying that this is an article about the region but do not want the title to reflect that? Yes, the name Palestine has referred to this region for 2000 years. Today the name "Palestine" means more than the region, it also the name of a state that has been recognized by around 100 other countries. Why should the title be ambiguous? If this article is specifically about the region then have the title be "Palestine (region)", if not then allow Harlan to add well sourced material about the state. nableezy - 21:36 10.07.2009 (UTC)

There's a fine clarification at the top of the page: "This article is about the geographical area", a link to the Palestinian territories, and a link to a disambiguation page for other uses. That's more than enough. The main usage is for the region, and it should clearly receive the priority over a political entity with unclear status that has been around for a few years. (Even Harlan claims the name for that body is "State of Palestine", so we don't even have an identical name issue). okedem (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually the PNC named the PLO the provisional government, and the UN named that entity Palestine. The archives show that several editors have complained because "State of Israel" redirects to Israel. With Palestine we get a disjointed grab bag of slap-dash articles. harlan (talk) 03:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

"State of Palestine" is a formal name, sort of like the "Arab Republic of Egypt". What we have here is a term, "Palestine", that can be used to refer to more than one thing. If this article is specifically about the region why not make the title of the article consistent with that? nableezy - 22:01 10.07.2009 (UTC)

"If this article is specifically about the region then have the title be "Palestine (region)", if not then allow Harlan to add well sourced material about the state". I think this is a more than fair point. The remit of any WP page is surely restricted only by its title. "Palestine" ought to allow for all material that is about "Palestine", whether we mean by that a region, a state, a prospective state, a historical province or whatever. Seems to me that if there is a view that the ambit ought to be restricted, then the title needs to be changed to reflect that. --FormerIP (talk) 22:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I only used the Federal Register to demonstrate that the area has been designated as a Country. All of those are located in some geographical region - without exception. The ISO, IOC, and etc. are secondary sources that confirm that it is a country. As the Countries cat and the Federal Code of Regulations explains, many countries, like the British mandate, are territories or dependencies. The Forward Magazine article in the same footnote demonstrated the recognition of the "State of Palestine" by the State of Costa Rica. It didn't use the term "partial" or rely on statements by PNA officials.

Reading the public notices that appear in the Federal Register, and citing what the State Department and Treasury Department have to say for themselves in a footnote is not a violation of WP:NOR. Similarly, the definition of the term "Country" that they used comes from the applicable preamble of the Federal Code of Regulations subsection that they were quoting. Their statements and that definition did not originate with me, or any other Wikipedia editor. WP:NOR says that primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia. The Treasury Department says that the territory has been legally designated as a Country of origin, and that the State Department says the West Bank and Gaza Strip are considered one area for political, economic, legal and other purposes. The Library of Congress also cites several secondary sources for the jurisdiction of Palestine and lists the Occupied West Bank and Gaza, including the areas under the control of the PNA as a "Nation". The Federal Code says:

(a) Country. “Country” means the political entity known as a nation. Colonies, possessions, or protectorates outside the boundaries of the mother country are considered separate countries.

(b) Country of origin. “Country of origin” means the country of manufacture, production, or growth of any article of foreign origin entering the United States. & etc...

I'm not aware of any policy which states that country categories can't be linked to geography articles that mention the history and geography of countries in their wikitext. In fact, I think that is the criteria for cat tagging such an article. The country of Palestine is located in this geographical region. Israel, the British Mandate, Palestine, and etc. are (or were) Arab speaking countries. harlan (talk) 23:02, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Find me examples of geographical region articles categorized as countries, and then we'll talk.

To the other points - no. This page will not be used to rewrite history and take over the common meaning of the word "Palestine". Note that that's not in any way even an official name for the supposed state (Palestinian Authority, State of Palestine, West Bank/Gaza, according to harlan's favorite customs source). It doesn't even have any defined boundaries (their people keep expressing their intention to take over Israel as well).

Whatever the Palestinian entity is, or will be, the name Palestine belong to a region which is home to two peoples, not just one, regardless of the name one of those take for themselves. okedem (talk) 08:12, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

rewrite history and take over the common meaning? When people refer to "Palestine" today, they are not referring to the entire region. There is more than one meaning for the word Palestine, and your stubborn attitude (just saying "no") notwithstanding, the word "Palestine" is also used for a state that has received recognition from around 100 other countries. Harlan has provided a number of sources that show the name "Palestine" is used by this state. I am going to go ahead with a RfM and see what consensus is here. nableezy - 21:32 11.07.2009 (UTC)

Okedem, please drop the hyperbole about "rewriting history". Even if there were a hard and fast policy which backed-up your belief that country cats shouldn't ever be tied to regional articles, that wouldn't alter the fact that Arabic is one of the official languages of every country in the region. It also wouldn't settle the article naming and content issues like the Outline of Palestine problem. If this article is too long, why does it spend so many kilobytes on ancient history? History of Palestine doesn't even link here, it's a redirect to History of the Southern Levant. There are similar snafus with Geography of Palestine, Landforms of Palestine, and etc. There is at least one editor who has deleted published historical information from this article because it supposedly "dealt with the region, but not with Palestine." Here is a very good example: [5]

It is an undeniable published fact that one of the most common applications of the term "Palestine" is in references to the modern Nation. The President used the term in that sense during his recent Cairo address. For more than a year now, the lede of this article has said that one meaning of the term is State of Palestine (albeit in a somewhat "on again-off again" fashion thanks to you). There is an IPCOLL discussion taking place right now about placenames, and there is an Arbcom request over the weight that should be given to the so-called "controversy" regarding the legal status of the occupied territory. There have been scores of threads about that same topic in the archives of this article. I've noted that there is no article at State of Israel. It's just a redirect page. Here is an observation about the situation from back in 2004:

"Why...does Israel direct straight to the modern nation-state, while Palestine directs to this hotchpotch of borders, refugees, and history? The commonest referent of "Palestine" in modern discourse is far and away the nation and would-be state, as a quick Google check [6] confirms; and "Israel" has at least as much historical ambiguity to it as "Palestine" (see Israel (disambiguation)), so that's not a reason. I suggest applying the same solution as in the case of Israel: adding a disambig page and reserving this page for facts the modern-day State of Palestine and Palestinian Authority. - Mustafaa 09:50, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)" from Talk:Palestine/Archive 6#Why...

I tend to agree. This article could be renamed Palestine (region), Palestinian Territories could be renamed Palestine, and State of Palestine should be redirected at it. The lede of that article could include the explanation that some states, international organizations, and parastatial organizations consider it a state, while others only consider it a country. That article already mentions the occupation and settlement negotiations. The UN first recognized the PLO as a National liberation movement. Later, after it had been designated the provisional government and declared its statehood, the UN designated it "Palestine". The legal counsel of the PLO at that time was Francis Boyle. He has earned doctorates in both political science and law from Harvard. He published a paper in the European Journal of International Law which said that 114 states had extended recognition to Palestine. The American public didn't even know that the US government had suggested and approved the annexation of the West Bank by Transjordan, until it finally started declassifying the records thirty years later. I'm inclined to think that Professor Boyle's numbers are correct, and that they include several states that have chosen not to make a public declaration. In any case, your objections to the "graduate dissertation" are inapplicable to the paper published by Dr. Boyle. harlan (talk) 03:47, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was no consensus to move. Jafeluv (talk) 21:31, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Palestine → Palestine (region) — As editors have repeatedly removed information on a state that has received recognition from around 100 other countries and representation in a number of international organizations (see above section), I propose moving this page to Palestine (region) and having Palestine be a disambig page to both this article and State of Palestine and Palestinian territories which are the three most common meaning for the word "Palestine" - nableezy 21:37, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support as the discussion above makes clear editors are determined to not allow discussion of the state into this article. If the article is limited in scope to the geographical region as Okedem has maintained I see no reason to not make that scope clear in the title of the page. nableezy - 21:39 11.07.2009 (UTC)
• Support per nableezy and my previous comments. --FormerIP (talk) 00:14, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

PS the request is listed as "malformed" at WP:RM, so someone might want to see to that. --FormerIP (talk) 00:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

resolved, my use of a nonstandard timestamp was the problem. nableezy • 04:16, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose The name Palestine has been used to refer to this region for some 2,000 years, and is now home to at least one state (Israel), a Palestinian entity (authority, autonomy, state), and, by some definitions, another country, Jordan. Today, even the Arabs use the name "Palestine" to refer to the entire territory now under Israel's control, and not just their future state. A simple Google search for "Palestine" makes that abundantly clear. Some examples - Britannica, UN, "Palestine remembered" discussing the entire land (including Haifa, Beersheba, etc.). There needs to be a huge shift in the usage of this term to warrant a move, and that has not occurred. For any misunderstandings, we have a link at the top of the page. But the main meaning is the region, not some half-existing entity. okedem (talk) 05:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per Okedem. — ^{\`</sup>CRAZY`(lN)`SANE<sup>`/} (talk • contribs) 09:17, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
• Tentatively oppose. The question is, do people use the word "Palestine" significantly more often to refer to the geographic region than to any of the other uses of the word? (Does anyone dispute that this is the question?) As far as I know, they do, and Okedem's Britannica link seems to confirm that. If someone could show me that they don't, I would support the move. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 14:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Comment I don't think this is the right question, actually. This isn't a case like New York vs New York (album), where we are dealing with two entirely distinct things and one has clear primacy. In the case of Palestine, we have a number of overlapping and inter-related geographic entities. There may be a legitimate case here that this article is about only one of those, and that the contents should be accordingly restricted. However, the proper place for this restriction to be expressed is in the title of the page. Otherwise, it seems to me, the page is just going to act as a magnet for edit-warring. --FormerIP (talk) 15:19, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Obviously this article is about the region. Otherwise we wouldn't be having a discussion on whether to rename it "Palestine (region)". And on principle, I don't accept the idea of renaming articles to avoid edit wars. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It isnt to avoid edit wars, it is to properly define the scope of the article. nableezy - 05:49, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, OK, that's your reason, and I was responding to his. Re yours, the lede is for defining the scope of the article. For example: it's not obvious when the Gaza War started and ended, but we don't name that article Gaza War (27 December 2008-17 January 2009 conflict). Also, your proposal goes beyond clarifying the article's scope in the title; you're also suggesting turning Palestine into a disambiguation page. (You could have suggested making Palestine a redirect to the article Palestine (region), and have the latter article begin with a link to Palestine (disambiguation). Jalapenos do exist (talk) 22:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose, per the standard, Macedonia excepting, that geographical regions take preference when identically named states claim part (e.g. Ireland) or all (e.g. China) of the region. Sceptre ^(talk) 04:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Not remarking on the argument, but I never noticed that China doesnt direct to the state, that just leaves me dumbfounded. nableezy - 05:48, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
    • It's probably because there are anyways two countries named "China": the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China (Taiwan). Still, I think when people say "China" they are usually referring to the PRC and not to the geographic region or to Taiwan, and if it were up to me I would have China be a redirect to People's Republic of China. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
      • However you will note that China is move protected, indicating a dispute over naming. 199.125.109.135 (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose. The region is by far the most common usage of the term "Palestine", and the only undisputed one. See e.g. the list of nearly 4000 articles linking to this one. -- uriber (talk) 18:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

Frankly the discussion has drifted sideways into flawed rationalizations. 114 countries legally recognize part of the region of Palestine as the State of Palestine. That fact is going to get mentioned in the lede no matter what you rename the article, or the disambiguation page. The Palestinians were redesignated "Palestine" after their 1988 declaration of statehood, but there's no rush to rename articles like Israel, Palestinians, and the United Nations in order to conform to the official UN designations. Another problem with the UN analogy is that the Question of Palestine dealt with the disposition of the Mandate. The law library at the Library of Congress says those were States, not regions. The American Law Encyclopedia Vol 3. entry on Dependent States says the same thing. According to Palestine Remembered, that's also the juridical setting for the Nakba (e.g. Deir Yassin happened April 1948). That means two out of the three examples you employed are states called Palestine, not regions.

Between the 5th and 6th talk archive listing above, there is a merge with: Talk:Palestine (region)/Archive. That archive contains this entry: Renamed: Region of Palestine -> Palestine (region). The notion that the article can't be renamed Palestine (region) by an ordinary user begins to look pretty farfetched. There was an article here about Palestine before that merge, and it wasn't limited to regional topics. The same editor who announced that move, also said he saw no reason to have a Palestine disambiguation page at all. In Talk:Palestine/Archive 5, Using the most current definition of Palestine he said this article ought to be merged with History of Palestine. That page used to have material forked from this article, but nowadays it's just a redirect page for History of the Southern Levant. The Outline of Palestine uses that page as a result of the redirect. No one seems to mind the "huge shift in usage" after 2000 years of consistently calling it Palestine, Southern Syria, Eretz Yisroel, or the dozen or so other terms listed under names and boundaries in this article. A couple of weeks ago, the same editor said that 'The "State of Palestine" has precious little to do with Palestine.'[7] I can only conclude that he or she isn't really very familiar with the most current usage.

After wasting 200K of talk page space claiming that everyone thinks of Palestine as a region, Okedem now claims that appending the term parenthetically (once again) requires some sort of huge shift in usage that hasn't occurred yet. He still says that a "Palestinian entity (authority, autonomy, state)" is an integral part of the region, so I don't think renaming the article will change the current situation. In international law there are very few (if any) universally recognized states. That only leaves non-state actors, internationally non-recognized states, and partially recognized states. Both Palestine and Israel are legally members of the latter category for treaty purposes and that can be verified by most of the Arab League states. harlan (talk) 16:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

You're making little sense, and refuse to address the question at hand. Can you, or can't you show that now "Palestine" is used to refer to the political entity, more-so, or on par with, the region?

And spare us the "114 countries legally recognize..." bit. That's not the focus of this discussion (by the way, a source you used and defended, "Today's Zaman", quoted a Palestinian official saying 67 states recognize them, so I guess he's wrong). Beyond this - firstly, recognition isn't the only component needed for a state, just like not recognizing a state doesn't mean it isn't one. Even if all countries is the world recognize Narnia as a state, it still wouldn't be one. These questions are more complicated, and are not for you or me to resolve. Citing primary evidence (recognition, territory, etc) and concluding about statehood is WP:OR, which is, as you know, not allowed. For the tenth time - if you want to claim it's a state, find scholarly sources, political science experts, analyzing the situation, and concluding it is a state. okedem (talk) 17:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think you guys are talking past each other. Obviously there is an embryonic/future/hypothetical/whatever state called Palestine, and the article State of Palestine is about that. There is also a geographic region called Palestine/Land of Israel/south Levant/Cisjordan, and this article is about the region. The suggestion Nableezy raised is whether we should rename this article about the region to "Palestine (region)". A discussion about the theoretical vs. real nature the State of Palestine belongs on that article's talk page, not here. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 17:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a remnant of another discussion, which, as I said above, indeed does not belong here. okedem (talk) 17:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

settle down boys and girls, lets stay on point
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
comment while not remarking right now on the merits of this name change, or jalapenos' argument, i would like to point out that he was selectively canvassed here by okedem. untwirl(talk) 18:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC) As anyone (like you) can easily see, I asked for his involvement in the discussion that was here, long before the vote. Thus, your accusation of "canvasing" is simply off the mark. I don't go around recruiting voters. I've seen jalapenos engage in these discussions with useful comments and a good cooperative attitude, and thought he could contribute to this discussion, especially as I find myself with little time to invest in this. If you'd like to contribute to this discussion, please do, but save us your accusations. okedem (talk) 18:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC) i'm sorry that you feel offended, but the wording, "Harlan keeps confusing the claims, and misusing sources" seems to be a non-neutral attempt to sway an editor's opinion. i believe in disclosure and transparency with these issues, and that is why i made that remark. untwirl(talk) 20:45, 12 July 2009 (UTC) Wow, untwirl, that was a really disgusting accusation, even more so given that you're unwilling to retract it or apologize. Okedem asked for my input in a discussion before this poll existed. He was perfectly entitled to tell me his opinions on the way the discussion was going. Doing so is normal communication between wikipedians and not canvassing. I suggest you apologize to Okedem. If you're planning on arguing about what exactly you did in order to avoid apologizing-- I'm not interested. The comments are right here, and anyone who cares can decide for themselves. Jalapenos do exist (talk) 22:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC) well, i'm afraid i'm going to disappoint you, jalapenos. the timing of this "poll" has no relevance on the nature of his request to you. perhaps next time he will phrase his request neutrally and you will disclose that you were asked to comment and then no one will feel "accused" of something "disgusting". thanks. untwirl(talk) 04:53, 16 July 2009 (UTC) Untwirl, when I want advice on how to address fellow wikipedians, you'll be the first one I go to (well, not even then, but let's pretend). Until then - keep your nose out of other people's affairs, and don't try to tell me what to do. I'm not a neutral referee here, and am under no obligation to speak "neutrally", as you say. okedem (talk) 05:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Major issues with this article

This article pretends to be about a geographical region named Palestine. There is however, no information on the geography of this region in the article. Instead, we have a huge section devoted primarily to the political history of Palestine. We also have a huge section on Demographics (which should be its own article Demographics of Palestine as discussed above).

I would like to propose a massive reorganization of this article. AllMost of the information pertaining to Palestine's history should be moved to History of Palestine (which was rather strangely unilaterally redirected to History of the Levant in December 2008 without any discussion). The demographics material should be moved to Demographics of Palestine. This article, if indeed it is going to be confined to a discussion of Palestine as a geographical region, should feature information on the geography of Palestine, including Flora and Fauna, ecoregions, etc, etc.

Are there any objections or suggestions on alternate ways to reorganize this subject? Tiamut^talk 11:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I object to this. An article discussing a geographical region is not limited to geography (like a country discussing a state isn't limited to discussing politics). The article should contain information about geography, but also about history, demographics, etc, much like South America. If any one section is too long, it can be shortened and the information moved to a sub-article (History of Palestine), with a briefer section remaining in this article (again, like in South America). okedem (talk) 19:32, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Okedem, in archive 9 you agreed that the information on Demographics could be moved to its own article with a summary here. That's all I'm proposing for the history section as well. Are you against including geographical information here (of which there is currently none)? And if this article can include things other than geography, why can't we mention that Palestinian consider Palestine to be their homeland? We mention that a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine was promised by the British. But you and other editors have deleted references to Palestinians, their national aspirations and statehood hopes for Palestine a number of times, claiming this is an article about a geographical region only. Can you explain the apparent discrepancy in your position? Tiamut^talk 22:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

There's no discrepancy in my position. You just suggested: "All of the information pertaining to Palestine's history should be moved to History of Palestine" - notice the "all", here. I'm saying - no, it shouldn't all be moved. If the history section is too long, we should copy it to the sub-article, and leave a shortened section here. Likewise for demographics. Same as in other region articles, which I've linked to.

Don't hold me accountable for actions of other editors. I have no objection to mentioning the Palestinians' position, in the appropriate section - demographics, most likely. But note that we don't mention the Jews position in the lead, either. What some editors tried to do (maybe you, maybe others, I don't remember) is to make this article about the Palestinians and their supposed state, and that's no what it's about, just like it isn't about the State of Israel. okedem (talk) 09:10, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry for not being clear and for misunderstanding your position. Note that currently we do mention that Jews call Palestine the Land of Israel in the lead, so there should probably be something about what Palestinians call it or feel about it too.

Frm your comments I gather that I can go ahead and begin farming material out of here to the spin-off articles, while retaining summaries of the subject here? And can I count on your support when information on Palestinian aspirations for a homeland in Palestine are added to this page? Thanks for clarifying Okekdem. Tiamut^talk 09:21, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I hope we're more in sync now. Yes, sub-articles are fine - some sections really need it (like demographics, which is a real mess to look at now). Under demographics, I suppose, a discussion of both Zionism and Palestinian nationalism are in order. As long as we keep both short and to the point, that's fine.

The "Land of Israel" mention is simply part of mentioning different names, and doesn't talk about aspirations or feelings. Palestinians use the name Falastin/Filastin, etc, which is already listed in the very first line. The article is named after a version of that name (Palestine), and not "Land of Israel", which is mentioned just as an alternative, less widely used name. okedem (talk) 09:30, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay great. I will start with the Demographics section, since we are in total agreement on that point. I'll tackle history a little later on. About the rest, we can work it later too. Thanks for your comments Okedem. Tiamut^talk 14:08, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

History - Hebrew Bible period

The first paragraph there: "Though the Biblical tradition holds that the Israelites arrived in Canaan from Egypt, archaeological evidence suggests that if there was in fact a United Kingdom of Israel in this early period, it must have emerged from among the local population existent there at the time.[54] Excavations have established that the late 13th, the 12th and the early 11th centuries BCE witnessed the foundation of perhaps hundreds of insignificant, unprotected village settlements, many in the mountains of Palestine.[55] From around the 11th century BCE, there was a reduction in the number of villages, though this was counterbalanced by the rise of certain settlements to the status of fortified townships.[55]".

This entire paragraph doesn't make any sense now. The first sentence used to make sense, but doesn't any longer. I'll explain:

• According to the bibilical timings, there are some 300 years between the arrival of Israelites from Egypt to the United Monarchy. No one says there was a United Monarchy in the 13th or 12th centuries BC. The exodus took place at about 1300 BC, meaning they arrived at Israel at about 1260 BC. That was the time of settlements and wars against the Canaanites, with separate tribes settling independent areas, and working pretty much alone. At about 1200 BC begins the time of the Judges - still no monarchy or real central authority, but something closer to it - the Judges ruling in disputes between tribes and uniting the tribes to fight against external threats. At about 1030 BC begins the United Monarchy, with king Saul. You can find various dates from various sources, but the point is that there are some 200-300 years between the Israelites arrival, and the United Monarchy, which means the monarchy did "emerge[d] from among the local population" (which arrived centuries earlier).
• The other sentences also make no sense - the excavations show the foundations of hundreds of villages in Israel, right during the time of the settlement - when the Israelites arrived. That's reasonable. They also show larger, fortified towns in the 11th century - a feature consistent with advancing to more central control, with resources to maintain fortified towns. This seemed to really strengthen the case for the biblical story, not weaken it. okedem (talk) 16:40, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point. I suggest removing the first sentence altogether. Tiamut^talk 16:47, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

And moving the oher sentences to the section above.Tiamut^talk 16:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Good, that would solve this. Those sentences would do well after (or in) the paragraph that begins: "Developments in Palestine between 1250 and 900 BCE...". To the beginning of the "Hebrew Bible" section we need to add something about the Judges period, as the biblical story didn't begin with the United Monarchy. Maybe something from History of ancient Israel and Judah#Period of the Judges, though that's hardly sourced right now. okedem (talk) 17:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'll move the sentences as you suggested. I'll also try to find some sources discussing the period of the Judges and add something about them to the article. It may take me until tomorrow since its not a subject I'm familiar with, but I'd be interested to learn more anyway. Tiamut^talk 17:42, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Moved the sentences to the paragraph above that one, which I think works a little better. I'm going to start reading up on the Judges period and try to have something for you soon. Tiamut^talk 18:10, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, Masoretic dating of the exodus places it at 1312 BCE with arrival into Israel at 1272 BCE. -- Avi (talk) 18:14, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Avi. Can you recommend any good sources on this subject that may help in composing the section in question? (Preferably online ones for ones you have digital copies of. No libraries in Nazareth means no regular access to new good books.) Tiamut^talk 18:27, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Online, not really. Most of my Masoretic knowledge comes from the original Hebrew texts of the TaNaKh and their Rabbinic commentaries; sorry. -- Avi (talk) 18:48, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Too bad. I'm reading Dever right now on google books, and http://books.google.ca/books?id=yTMzJAKowyEC&pg=PA121&dq=%22iron+age%22+israelites+philistines#v=onepage&q=%22iron%20age%22%20israelites%20philistines&f=false this] on Ancient Israel and Canaan is also very good. I think though that it will be quite challenging to get into the details here. Perhaps all we need for this article is a quick reference, one sentence to the period of Judges with the link to our article Okedem gave above. There, we can develop the page with better sources and citations. I've started to do that Philistines right now and may take a crack at Israelites too. Tiamut^talk 18:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)