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Complete rewrite

Could someone, preferably User:Viriditas explain why this article needs complete rewrite. I do see some moderate dispute/discussion on talk page. But complete rewrite... it's kinda too much. --tasc 11:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Lokiloki 11:32, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Given the number of edits, it appeared the article was being completely rewritten. That and a NPOV dispute on the talk page makes the use of the subpage ideal, but not absolutely necessary. It may be one way of avoiding a future dispute. —Viriditas | Talk 11:57, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
ain't your template implies that article should be rewritten again? besides, there is no npov dispute. there is a dispute regarding top image, which is now being discussed. --tasc 12:14, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
No, I just left that in to compare versions; it can easily be removed. There does seem to be a NPOV dispute on the talk page. Perhaps the temp page could help solve this problem. —Viriditas | Talk 12:18, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
On talk page seem to be section "npov dispute". I doubt if it could be called npov dispute. --tasc 13:17, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Proposal to split

I may regret ever writing this, but I'd like to propose to separate the Views section into Positions on Arab-Israeli conflict or whetever better title we can come up with. At 70k, this is one of the longest and most controversial articles in WP. While the history section has more or less crystallized, the Views section often deteriorates and makes the whole article even more unmanageable. Couple of notes I'd like to make:

  • Instead of attempts to separate artificially Palestinian/Arab from Israeli/Jewish views in different corners, IMHO it is better to come up with a list of grievances and then describe them as claim/counterclaim. It is wrong to leave the reader without the view from the other side.
  • Since recently, there is an effort (either conscious or not) to turn it into a clone of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  • I think it is important that we also reflect also other views, preferably sourced mainstream scholars. ←Humus sapiens ну? 12:00, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

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"Instead of attempts to separate artificially Palestinian/Arab from Israeli/Jewish views in different corners, IMHO it is better to come up with a list of grievances and then describe them as claim/counterclaim. It is wrong to leave the reader without the view from the other side."

I agree with this point, and think that doing this would reduce some of the redundancy of the article... (i.e., mentioning that Israel/Jews view the Palestinian right of return as not viable because they won't live in peace... and mentioning it every time the Palestinian refugee situation is brought up... way too much).

I do not, however, agree that moving the "issues" section to a separate area should be done... why? Because the history section focuses largely on the past, but the issues section often discusses current issues in slightly more depth. If we do this, the history section will just expand to encompass the varying subtleties... as well, when people click on "Arab-Israeli conflict" they expect to see some degree of focus on the current conflict. When I click on "Mexican-American relations" (which may or may not exist in Wikipedia, who knows), I expect to see things primarily about NAFTA, etc, and not about the Mexican-American war and other things from 100 years ago. Anyway... obviously we need to include the background, but for this, and other, reasons I would say that we need to keep everything on the same page.

So, I think that reorganizing the views section into each point would be good.

A few points:

1. There is no need to, for example, present lots and lots of quotations, as is done in the quote section and as is done in the Arab aggression section... I think we all know that we could probably find many quotations from each side saying many different things... a few quotes from a few primary players is probably sufficient. I was planning to find counterbalancing quotes from ben-Gurion, etc, but, really... what's the point of having like a dozen quotes from each side? It's just too much.

2. The primary argument should be presented first... when I first came to this topic, and others, I found that, for example, in the Settlement argument it started off by saying something like "Isrealis do not believe that Palestians are justified in arguing against settlements because..." The position should start off with the main controversy (e.g., "The construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is a flash point because...") AND THEN follow with the rebuttals. There are too many places, including on this page, where the rebuttal is presented first.

3. The issues should be presented one after another for each side... in other words, it should not be all the Israeli views and then all the Arab views, but should be presented one after another, alternating. It's important to remember that NPOV, in my opinion, also means presentation on the page.

So, why not go ahead and try to reorganize the views by point... It would be best if you did this without first adding any new content... i.e., lets work with the content that we have and first try on grouping things together without adding new content... adding new content will just complicate things. I suppose it is best to start doing this in that sandbox/rewrite area that Vinditas proposed. Once we have a basic grouping down, we can then replace the current article and work on removing redundancies... of which there are many on both sides.

Lokiloki 12:17, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Lokiloki, you seem to mix up Arab-Israeli conflict with Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There were no Jewish settlements of 1967 in 1948, and to promote this PLO version is to rewrite history. ←Humus sapiens ну? 12:31, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


It is not rewriting history as the Arab-Israeli conflict is ongoing, and, as I have argued elsewhere in this discussion page, has to do more with people versus people in its current incarnation (rather than, say, 50 years ago when it was more country versus countries or vice versa). The larger Arab-Israeli conflicted is significantly impacted by, for example, the expansion of settlements and their presentation on Arab media. As is mentioned at the beginning, much of the current Arab-Israeli conflict (for instance, Al Q., Iran, etc) base their claims on the impacts of Israel on Palestine... so, while there is certainly an israle-pal conflict, there are overlaps, particularly nowadays.
I was also going to say: Again, I think this is probably best done in the "sand pit" area without adding any new content... perhaps we could temporarily "lock" editing on the main page so people don't add new content. We could then generally agree with the composition of the page, and then replace the main article with the new composition... and then start arguing over redundancies and wording
Unless you want to make a first stab in the sandpit area, if you like, I can make the proposed mergers in the sand pit area in about 16 hours. I can only make a few minor changes at the moment because I have to do some work also.

Lokiloki 12:33, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I think I would agree with locking the page until we get a lot of stuff sorted out. Also I agree with Loki that people coming to this page are expecting to see the issues of the current conflict, maybe we should move the some of the history to a "History of the Israeli-Arab conflict" article or somthing. I do however think we could move a lot of the issues to another page like the biased text books and zionism is rascism stuff as well as the counterclaims for both of those areas.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:46, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

I very much disagree with Loki's feeling that history is unimportant here. Putting the conflict into historical perspective is one of the most important things this page can do for readers. I agree with Humus's suggestion to merge that started this section, above. I think this will be helpful for decreasing length of the article. I hope that balance can be maintained during this process. elizmr 14:06, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with elizmr; putting the conflict in historical perspective is crucial, and Humus' merger suggestion was good. Jayjg (talk) 16:30, 19 March 2006 (UTC)


I never said that history is unimportant -- just that a single page is probably better. Lokiloki 19:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is more than double the recommended length. As in many other WP articles (e.g. London), we'd have a link to the subarticle and a paragraph or two summarizing/outlining it. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:39, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
Can you make your changes to Arab-Israeli conflict/temp? —Viriditas | Talk 01:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Can somone explain to me what the purpose of a temp article is? I have actually never encountered one since I have been editing wikipedia.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
See the "Temporary subpages" subsection at Wikipedia:Content forking. —Viriditas | Talk 01:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Thats what I would've guessed it was.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk
Compare edits to see examples. For an example of one proposed split, see [1]. Using this page will avoid edit wars on the main page. —Viriditas | Talk 01:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think looking back when I first starting reading wikipedia I would be more inclined to read the history sections more. But since I started editing it I would concentrate more on the issue part of it since that is where the controversy and POV is, so maybe we should move a lot more of the issues than the history to the new article.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree with the decision to split. The history section could be shortened, not least because there are already different articles on every facet of the history, e.g., six-day-war, independence, first infitada, etc. It seems bizarre and unnecessary to split out views, as these are, in my ways, the crux of the issue, currently. I will point out, also, that there is no section on the current issues of this conflict. Lokiloki 02:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I would not call it bizarre and unnecessary. See the content guideline: WP:BREAK. —Viriditas | Talk 02:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I think most people coming here are going to be more interested in the history section than in all of the issues and stuff, since the issues basically just represent various POV's and the average person wil probably be turned off if he has no interest in editing them. I'm still saying we keep some of the issues though, I just think ther is a lot we cna move to another page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The same standards apply. History of the Arab-Israeli conflict should be split off when appropriate. —Viriditas | Talk 02:22, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I do not agree that the history and views can be easily teased apart. If we do this, then I will start to edit both of them to represent what are currently missing pieces of the history. For example, the current history simply iterates the wars between arab and israel... it does not spell out facts on the ground in regards to settlement activities, targeted killings, human rights violations, and other aspects which are represented in the views section: these facts should be in the history section, but I have held off on adding them there because they are pretty sufficiently represented in the Views area. Splitting the article will require me to represent these important historical considerations in the history section. Moving the history and views apart will then require addition of some of these aspects INTO the history section to better reflect the history comprehensively. Lokiloki 02:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Moving quotes to wikiquote and adding an interwiki

if anyone is wondering were the quotes are, thats where. This is customary if anyone is doesn't know.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 13:50, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

How about moving the Arab hostility quotes there? Lokiloki 19:09, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

There are more qoutes on the page? where? under what title?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 23:47, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

"Humiliation" as a pretext for terrorist attacks

Lokiloki, do you do this on intention? The Arabs attacked Israel before the settlements and before Israel supposedly "humiliating" of the Palestinians. Did you ever undergo security measures in an airport? The audience of Al-Jazeera readily believes in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, should we include it as a factor in the conflict as well? The BTselem numbers are skewed: they include both terrorists and civilians. The numbers don't belong here. No other conflict/war in the article lists the numbers. ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Huh? If you deny the numbers, then please provide citations to suggest some different set of numbers. Those were obtained from the BBC, which I am afraid to tell you is pretty well regarded in the world. If you want to find a WorldNetNews citation saying no Palestinians were killed, well, I guess you can do that. But, for now, the statistics stay. Even Moshi, in another article, said that these statistics were well-accepted such that the mention of BTselem wasn't even necessary. And, whats the point in fighting about this: the REFERENCE that existed before the numbers were broken out was to the exact same BBC page that I linked to, and that reference differentiated between who was killed. I simply took the statistics straight from the BBC Web site that was already cited there.
You are talking about 1948 in terms of Arabs attacking Israel... okay. And that is well-represented by the multitude of photographs and prior descriptions on your page, including the POV map and POV cartoon. I am saying that the CURRENT Arab-Israeli conflict is part of a media war, of which images such as this are potent, recurring, and powerful.
As I think I said elsewhere, you can presumably fight all day with me on this, and you can rewrite history to present your viewpoint. But I think you will find that you will be the worse for it: people will not trust Wikipedia as a presenter of the COMPLETE facts, and they will find even more extreme interpretations than this. You should try to reflect on this and undertand that your caricatured cartoon is also POV... not that Nassar didn't want to beat Israel, but, for isntance, in the anti-Semetic caricature...
As it is, I will continue to reinsert these images, as I feel that they are essential to understanding this conflict.

Lokiloki 08:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

And, by the way, I never said that humiliation is a pretext for terrorist attacks. Where did you get that? I simply presented this image showing that humiliation of Arabs plays a potent role in this conflict nowadays. You disagree?

Lokiloki 08:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki, why there is no terror attack images? don't you think that so cald "humiliation" was in response to suicidal bombings? --tasc 08:42, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I invite you to add a terror attack photo if you feel it is appropriate. I do not think that the facts of history should not be presented under any circumstance. Lokiloki 08:45, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
and you do realize also that intifada is israeli-palestinian conflict, don't you? Please, revert carefully you're not the only one editor. thanks.

No, it is part of the larger Arab-Israeli conflict, as these images figure prominently into the current Arab-Israeli conflict, cited by al-Q, Egypt, Iran, Syria, etc... i.e., these countries view the images, such as this, and it impact them significantly. What is the purpose of denying this? You can clean out all images such as this, but they will still be presented on Al-Jazeera... don't you think it is better to present the facts, including images? Do you really want such a pyrrhic victory? If you want to remove these so-called propoganda images, you can do so, but also remove the POV cartoon image. It may well be the case that many Arab countries hated Israel, but to communicate that in a crude, caricatured cartoon is equally point of view. Lokiloki 08:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki, please, let's focus on our article. I'm talking about where this image belongs. Aparently not to this article. I'd be just glad to see it in israeli-palestinian article right along with killed civilians image. But it doesn't belong here. No matter where it's seen/shown. --tasc 08:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Why doesn't it belong here? Why is it any less viable here as, say, the caricatured Egyptian cartoon? Do you not see that presenting that as one of the first images people see to this page is extremely POV? Come on! It may well be the case that Egypt, etc, hated Israel, but to present that fact in a manner presenting caricatured Jews is inappropriate... But I will say that this issue is not inappropriate here... it presents the current Arab-Israeli conflict, which has morphed into a media battle... I could change it to al-Durrah...? Lokiloki 09:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
IPC and AIC are two different topics and belong into different articles. It is your POV/intention to mix them up, but I think it is wrong. The Nasser cartoon is world-famous. It belongs here. As someone already noted above, you misunderstand NPOV policy.
BTselsem is not a neutral source, they don't even hide their political agenda. It is wrong to bunch together terrorists and civilians. Here is some casualty statistics [2]. I don't know if it has been updated since 2003. But all this belongs into subarticles on IPC and Al-Aqsa Intifada. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I understand Loki's argument that the picture flames arab opinon against Israel, but I still do not see that as enough to be included in *this* article, I think it would be relavent in the Israeli-palestinian conflict article if it's not there already. The Nasser cartoon represents the conflict between Israel and the larger Arab world, but the aformentioned photo for the most part represents the smaller conflict with the palestinians.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The Nassar cartoon presents a caricatured cartoon. It would be one thing to show a speach of Nassar inveighing against Israel... but an additional, POV aspect is added when you show it with a caricatured cartoon of a Jew with a big nose... come on! It would be like presenting England's ire against Ireland with a cartoon showing a drunken Irishman in a leprechaun outfit. Does anyone besides me see the bias of that cartoon? Lokiloki 09:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It was made to show how bad the jews were so yea it was bias, bottom line though it relates to the larger AIC, since there is seperate page for the IPC then your photo clearly belongs there instead.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the cartoon for the moment. If someone wants to argue for and against it, by all means do so, but I think we should focus on the content and the cartoon is just getting in the way. Let's put it aside for right now. —Viriditas | Talk 09:23, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Sigh... Humus you are tipping your hand. You claim that the BBC article detailing statistics is biased. And then you provide casualty statistics from a site that says "the al-Aqsa Infitada: An Engineered Tragedy". You are ALMOST as bad as the guy on the settlement page who was arguing for all the benefits to the Arabs because of settlements today. Wow. Was I reading that write? An admin thankfully deleted his edits, but he came back and demanded they be reinserted. Presumably it is just a day or two before he adds how "beneficial" Israeli prisons are for Arabs: why, they give Arabs a view of a civilized society, and indoor plumbing, and electricity!!! Lokiloki 09:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Lokiloki, I would like to offer a friendly reminder: WP:COOL. Let's try to work this out without personal attacks. —Viriditas | Talk 09:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Lokiloki, I don't know how to say it... this is not about me.
With all due respect to the BBC, they were so bad that at some point they were banned in Israel. I can provide proof, as well as their own critical self-review. See also [3].
Again, you show extreme intolerance to points & sources that don't comply with your POV. In general, WP doesn't have to comply with your POV (or PLO's, I don't see much difference). Of course doesn't have to comply with mine either.
I didn't go through all your changes, why did you silently remove ref. to Dennis Ross?
Prisons? Plumbing? I've no idea what is that about. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't silently remove it. I mentioned it in the edit summary. The subtopic was about "Jewish settlements", and that long paragraph had absolutely nothing to do with Jewish settlements.

You have denied my use of PLO photographs in the past. And now you are denying my use of BBC statistics. Do you mind telling me what sources I can use?

Lokiloki 09:58, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Please don't play a victim of censorship. I cannot "tell" you. I just happen to know that some sources are biased. I don't think it is fair to mention numbers in that short summary becasue to bunch terrorists and terror victims is misleading. BTW, I found a 2005 update of the ICT stats: [4]. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I see... you "happen to know" that the BBC is biased. Okay. Well, do you mind telling me what sources I may use that you would accept, if not the BBC? I selected the BBC simply because I assumed it was the most neutral source, but I can easily Google search and probably find the same statistics in the NY Times, CNN, MSNBC, FN, LT, etc etc... will any of these do? Or are they all biased too? Lokiloki 10:20, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The irony is that if the edit war continues, the page will be protected, and everyone will be forced to use the temp page whether they like it or not. —Viriditas | Talk 10:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki, I know you are not going to take my word for it either, but it is very well-known that the BBC is highly biased on the issues of Israel/Palestine. elizmr 14:15, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Would I be right in thinking that you don't watch the BBC? --Ian Pitchford 15:36, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
me? You are right---I don't watch the BBC--it is not something I have access to. However, I listen to the BBC news daily on the radio (we get it as part of national public radio in the US), and read the BBC Web site pretty much on a daily basis. elizmr 16:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I loved the Auntie Beeb ever since I listened to it from the other side of the Iron Curtain, jammed by the Commies. It doesn't matter. Here we are talking about its persistent anti-Israel bias [5] and violations of its own charter which demands neutrality. Sometimes they even admit it (after the damage is done) [6]. BTW, we have a separate article Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:33, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Countering Systemic Bias

If anyone wants to see bias at work, go to the Islam and other religions page: a group of rabid islamofascits have taken over that page, protected by a monitor who in violation of wikipedia rules "disappears" editors who attempt to provide a npov to the article. wikipedia is not a valid reliable source of information so long as it permits extremest monitors to "own" certain sites.Incorrect 16:29, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

I am extremely dishearted by what I have found on Wikipedia. Given demographics, I suppose it is no surprise that in the last week+ of editing the Arab-Israeli conflict, I have pretty much single-handedly represented the "Arab" views -- the vast majority of other editors have made changes that could reasonably be characterized as pro-Israel. When I first came to this article, it was pretty much single-handedly a pro-Israel screed, with even the "Arab views" sections starting off presenting Israeli views... and the fact that there are no Human Rights pages for Israel or the West Bank?

I realize that people should write what they know. But it is very upsetting to find this place at the tyranny of the majority. As I said, the majority of editors here write from a pro-Israel perspective. How can this be countered? It does not appear that we can rely on the "Countering systemic bias" team. It's sorta upsetting, too, not least because I am DISinterested in this topic... the only Arab I know was the guy I just spoke to on the phone at the PLO office (getting permission to use the "controversial" image). But others clearly are interested in this topic, and are pushing POVs that are pretty extreme.

Do you not all see that the Arab view is only sporadically represented here? Do you not see that denying an equal presentations of facts is indeed a Pyrhhic victory? Do you think that this one-sided presentation will encourage people to trust, read, or contribute? At least for this topic, it most surely won't.

Lokiloki 09:12, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There are plenty of POV warriors on the opposite side that are saying almost the identical thing just turned around.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:18, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Please use Arab-Israeli conflict/temp for controversial changes and to avoid edit wars on the main page. I encourage everyone to use this page so we can discuss such edits. I still haven't heard from anyone except Lokiloki regarding breaking up the history and views sections on the temp page. —Viriditas | Talk 09:16, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I find the phrase, "pretty much single-handedly a pro-Israel screed," is uncivil and **highly insulting** to the editors who have been working on this page up until recently. Reading through the page, there have been many editors working here with many points of view. If the page didn't read like a "boycott Israel" fact sheet, that's because this is Wikipedia and all points of view are supposed to be presented here in a respectful way. I am very confused about exactly what is happening with the current rewrite. Could someone please state what exactly the goals and process are here? elizmr 14:04, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The goal is to represent the facts neutrally, comprehensively, and diligently. I believe that the facts as of a few days ago were not done so in this manner, with many of the "Arab views" sections begininng not with Arab views, but Israeli rebuttals right away. That you feel the BBC is biased, and that presumably, like Humus, you will debate their sourcing is very upsetting. Humus offers right-wing Israeli news sources as a source alternative to the BBC. As I said, I found all of the citations on the BBC because I had assumed that most people would accept it as the most neutral arbitrar available. I have also quoted from the US State Dept, the CIA, etc, in an attempt to find acceptable sources. If you like, I will start to use NPR itself, as well as CNN, MSNBC, etc. (Except that the latter don't really have very detailed work at all.) Lokiloki 20:24, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki, I am not debating the sourcing of BBC on Wikipedia. I am just saying that it has a bias; it is not a neutral source. OK? elizmr 20:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Okay, well Humus was debating the sourcing of BBC, and I thought that was what you are commenting on. I'm surprised to see you feel that the BBC is biased: I have found them to be almost frustratingly disinterested in all their coverage. Lokiloki 20:59, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Comparative statistics

The comparative statistics section needs an introductory paragraph which summarizes the data. —Viriditas | Talk 09:41, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Deletions

Please discuss deletions on talk before making them. I would once again like to recommend that we agree on versions represented on talk. Anyone can edit the temp version and post a link to their preferred version here, so that we can all discuss it. —Viriditas | Talk 10:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

---

Per Viriditas instructions:

Slated for deletion: The following paragraph appears in the "Jewish Settlements in the West Bank" section; as near as I can tell, it has nothing to do with that section: "In 2000, at Camp David, the Palestinians were offered a nominally independent state composed of discontiguous parts of most of Gaza and the West Bank, with Israeli control over its airspace, borders and trade. Led by Arafat, the Palestinians rejected this offer, claiming that this state would be a "Bantustan" (a state divided in many pieces) without sovereignty. President Clinton and the Israelis asked the Palestinians to offer a counter-proposal, but Arafat declined and returned to the West Bank. Later, further negotiations did take place, but they were terminated by the Israeli side. In his book The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace, Dennis Ross, the American ambassador and facilitator, asserts that the idea the Palestinian state would be a "Bantustan" was a myth, and provides maps showing an offer that included contiguous territory. [40]"

If you object to the deletion of the aforementioned please let me know why.

I also plan to delete the TWO disputed facts that have not found any citations for a few days (that Israel maintains a population exchange occured; and that Israel won't bring Pal refugees back because Arab states won't deal with Jewish refugees). If you object to this, I request that you please provide citations. By the way, I have mentioned that these will deleted several times in the talk page, and no one has commented or raised any concern or provided citations, so I am planning to delete tomorrow unless I hear otherwise.

Thanks... Lokiloki 10:13, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

If the content doesn't reflect the section title, then rename or move it. I don't understand why you want to delete it from the article merely because it lacks the proper heading. —Viriditas | Talk 10:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was trying to reduce the size of the article... I deleted an entire "pro" Palestinian section too (because it was turgid and didn't seem to say much of anything), but that was also added back. Anyway, I moved that content to a new section in Israeli views.

New proposal to delete: The entire subsection of "Palestinians as victims of extremism" which is no longer relevant (given Hamas) and doesn't really say much of anything.

Lokiloki 10:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

As for reducing size of the article, have you looked at the current temp page? I would like to see betweeen one and three paragraphs (summary style) on the main page with a link to the split article. We can preserve the full content on the respective main articles. —Viriditas | Talk 10:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Regarding the "Palestinians as victims of extremism" section, without citations I can't make a decision. Opinions from other editors would be welcome. —Viriditas | Talk 10:47, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

The temp page is probably okay, provided that the POV map (in my opinion, and which has been mentioned by others elsewhere) isn't repeated again and again on the history and views page. The introduction probably needs some expansion to include more information: the current two paragraphs that are there are more or less worthless, in my opinion, because they have been so qualified and neutured that they don't really say anything. I mean, sentences like this just waste space: "Animosity emanating from this conflict has caused numerous attacks on supporters (or perceived supporters) of one side by supporters of the other side in many countries around the world." That's like saying "A human can drink water from a tap or other source, but water can also be drunk by itself." Just pedantic. Lokiloki 10:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I still think we should put more focus on the history.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:40, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Would you be interested in creating History of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and replacing the text on the temp page with a 1-4 para summary style section? —Viriditas | Talk 13:32, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Looking at the note above this one, Loki, I don't follow your metaphor at all. elizmr 13:43, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't see any reason for showing a map of Israeli settlements but not the map of the sides in the conflict. Just another attempt to turn AIC into IPC. Do the settlers threaten Syria? Saudi Arabia? Lebanon? ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Israeli willingness to make peace

I understand that this is a proto-section, but can we please keep in mind the NPOV policy? Attribution might help. —Viriditas | Talk 10:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I was just using the same subheading as the "Arab willingness to make peace" section elsewhere, and then simply moved all the content up without adding anything new. Lokiloki 10:56, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


Reasons for the conflict

Hi, could someone tell me the history of this sentence as the representative example for the "Reasons for the conflict"? I don't think this is a great thing to have as the only example here for a few reasons, but I'd like to know the history before editing.

A powerful example of this divide can be found in opinion surveys of Palestinians and Israelis. In a March, 2005 poll 63% of the Israelis blamed the failure of the Oslo Peace Process on Palestinian violence, but only 5% of the Palestinians agreed. 54% of Palestinians put the blame on continuing Israeli settlement activity, but only 20% of the Israelis agreed [1]. It is therefore difficult to develop a single, objective reason for the conflict, so this article will present some of the arguments made by each side, in turn.

elizmr 13:39, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you edit the temp version linked on top? That section needs work. —Viriditas | Talk 13:44, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
Not until someone provides an overview of what the new pages will be. I'm totally confused by what is going on here. elizmr 14:05, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that the initial page will be a short page, and then the history and views pages will be broken out into separate pages.

As for the history of that sentence, it is probably easiest to look through the history of the article itself. Lokiloki 20:27, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Viability of a Palestinian State

I dispute that it is in the center of AIC and (for the nth time) strongly object attempts to turn AIC into a clone of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The history of Proposals for a Palestinian state shows exactly the opposite: the Arab leaders refused to create a Palestinian state consistently over the decades:

The fact that some dictators and their defenders abuse the tragedy of the Palestinian people does not justify that we should accept their propaganda unchallenged. Even here in this very article some insist on "Illegitimacy or illegality of Israel". You cannot have it both ways. ←Humus sapiens ну? 05:40, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki's "attempt at compromise" was to remove "Israel as a Jewish state". IOW, the destruction of Israel a Jewish state is not off the table. Some compromise! ←Humus sapiens ну? 05:55, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Your use of the term "Israel's existence as a Jewish state" is POV in that it frames the argument as 1) a demographic issue of increasing Arabs in Israel and 2) that the issue is so black or white that it is all about whether or not Israel exists, or not. I am not arguing that both of these arguments hare part of this conflict. They are. However, while both of are important, it is inexact to represent the entire conflict in the most extreme example. That is similar to George Bush's argument that "the freedom of the World is at stake" when he makes his arguments. Indeed, in the A-I conflict, there is much subtlety and additional facets, and it is inappropriate to reflect the most extreme aspects of the conflict in the caption. The term "The future of Israel" is more neutral and highlights the fact that it is not all about Israel's "existence". Lokiloki 06:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The existence of the Jewish state is "the most extreme example"? LOL! Please don't bring GWB or abortion into this. ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

(i edited this and then couldn't post it because V posted in-between. and again! ;) ;)) By that I mean it is the most extreme example in that some parties claim Israel should not exist. However, by using that as the framing for the entire argument, it bypasses the other facets and subtleties of the conflict, and represents it as a "life or death" conflict by Jewish Israelis. I realize that this is indeed the concern for some, and that threats against Israel are made, but I think most parties would agree that Israel's very existence is not under threat (unless youare talking about Iran, but they are not Arab).

By using your phrasing, you bypass the other subtleties such as economic involvement, refugees in Arab countries, the Arab media, the use of the conflict as a tool in Arab govt's, etc etc. I just don't understand why you cannot agree to a more NPOV statement. I am tired of sentence battles everyday with you. You take and reflect pro-Israeli POVs, and I am trying to compromise here: why can't you agree to more neutral framing, really? And why are you following me into every one of the pages that I edit and often revising or disputing my sentences? If you must do that, why not follow me into the Howard Stern topic or Xenu topic? If you wish to include the existence of Israel part, then I will edit the caption to try to summarize all the other facets and subtleties that are ignored by that obtuse framing. I never brought up abortion. Lokiloki 06:09, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Come on Loki, you shouldn't complain about other people starting to arguments with you, your just as much responsible for the conflict as anyone else involved is.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 06:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


Well, I added "viability of a pal state" to try to point out that the most important aspect of this conflict isn't the overwroung "very extistence of a Jewish state", but that there were other aspects, too. He deleted my addition, so I tried to compromise by phrasing in a more neutral way. Framing the issue as chiefly about whether or not Israel should or should not exist, and as a Jewish state too, ignores the current conflict and the subtleties therein. Lokiloki 06:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Re the Pal. state, the list above shows cold hard historical facts. Just curious, how do you suppose the Jewish state is to be destroyed? Why, according to you & Co., the Arabs are entitled to 22 countries and Jews to 0? ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I've restored the caption in the temp version: "Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights; and the viability of a Palestinian state are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict." Please continue to discuss this and come to an agreement before edit warring over it. —Viriditas | Talk 06:48, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Viriditas, I think the most NPOV statement would be "The future of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict". Lokiloki 06:49, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
What does Humus think? —Viriditas | Talk 06:51, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
What does it mean, "the future of Israel". Why don't we talk about the future of Spain (even though there is a Basque conflict) or Turkey (even though there is a Kurd conflict)?
I think that instead of explaining the phenomenon, the proposed phrase hides the culprit of the problem: continued for decades inability/unwillingness of Arab leaders to accept a Jewish state in the Middle East. I challenge you (whoever) to prove me wrong.
OTOH, a separate Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about Palestinian self-determination.
Encyclopedias explain and systematize things and developments. To hide vital relevant facts is a propaganda technique to muddle the subject. ←Humus sapiens ну? 07:19, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


I do not propose hiding information, and I think you will agree that the future of Israel, its threats, and so on are represented in the article. But to state that the very "existence of the Jewish state" is at stake phrases things in an overwrought, obtuse manner, and frames the issues as one of Israel hanging by a thread, will it survive or not.

Almost all agree that Israel will survive (even if its Arab neighbors wouldn't want it to (but even this is not that accurate, as many have signed agreements, etc., with Israel), and this phrasing ignores and, indeed, hides subtleties of the situation. And I will further state that the Pal-Israeli conflict reflects on the Arab-Israeli conflict as it is an important touchstone for that conflict.

I again maintain that the phrasing I proposed is more neutral. The Arab-Israeli conflict should not be boiled down to a sentence which suggests that the fate of Israel's very existence is at stake.

Lokiloki 07:27, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

We are not discussing whether Israel will survive the attack or in what form it may come. Vital fact: the nature of the AIC conflict is that Arab leaders do not accept a Jewish state in the Middle East. I challenge you to prove me wrong. What exactly are the "subtleties of the situation": what the BBC or Al-Jazeera may say? ←Humus sapiens ну? 07:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


So Morocco doesn't accept Israel? The "core" conflict is a matter of perspective. Do you think if you went to, say, Egypt and asked a man on the street what he saw the core conflict of Arab-Israel he would say, "oh it is because we don't accept them". Of course not.

Indeed, Arab nations would NOT describe the issue as their unacceptance of Israel (of which many actually accept Israel) BUT they would probably describe it as an issue of colonialism, of the Nakba, of settlements, and so on.

It is a totally Israeli perspective to define it all as an issue of Arab leaders not accepting Israel. Do you think they just do that for the heck of it, or do you think that they might have some perspective on why they do that? Do you think that their perspectives should be taken into consideration for this article, or should we make it all from an Israeli perspective? Please let me know, because if you want a POV article, similar to the right-wing articles you cite from (as opposed to the horribly unfair BBC), then I will leave and we can mark this article POV and we can let you rule the roost.

I am trying to be NPOV and put a neutral description. If I took your approach, I would have changed it to: "The establishment of Israel on lands occupied by Palestinians, their eviction, and the continued human rights abuses by Israel in the occupied territories, including settlement building..." I am not doing that because I do not believe that is a fair perspective.

BUT I am beginning to realize that to deal with you I may just have to do what you do and push extreme POV positions.

Lokiloki 08:01, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Israeli perspective (if there is one, AFAIK, there is full spectrum) doesn't necessarily mean it is wrong. The facts (not "perspective" or opinions) are at the top of this section. You didn't present any facts, and to prove your point (which is what, hiding history?) now you switch to threats and sarcasm. ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:13, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
Israel was established by the UN in 1947. It is not their fault that instead of state building, the Arabs rejected any compromise and engaged in series of wars: overt, covert, economic and political. Which brings us to the nature of the conflict, see above. ←Humus sapiens ну? 08:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

There are so many facts in this article, in the Views section, that we are forced to split the argument into 3 section. That, at the very least, should suggest to you that the views, issues, and facts related to this conflict are far more than your POV you keep arguing for. Lokiloki 08:21, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Your "summary" of the events is also biased: it's all about Arab leaders rejecting totally fair and grand gestures on the part of Israel, right? It's all the Arab leaders fault. It is POV to summarize in such shorthand and then say, in effect, see, I told you it is all about Israel and its very existence. You should know that there is far more history and background than simply Arab leaders supposedly rejecting out-of-hand anything to do with Israel, not least because that doesn't describe the CURRENT conflict. So you are saying that Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Cormoros, etc etc, just totally refuse to even recognize Israel and call for its destruction day after day?

Even if that was the case, to say that this is the core of the issue, without reflecting on why the Arab states might be doing this belies a POV that is unconstructive. Lokiloki 08:23, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Lokiloki, why do they do this is a secondary issue. Whose fault it is, is a tertiary issue (no one's an angel) and this is not what we are talking about. Please don't switch the topic.
I hope you still remember the quotes by Azzam Pasha, Nasser, Assad, Saddam, Qaddafi, etc. They didn't have any problem announcing their goal loud and clear. Even WP proudly brandishes "Illegitimacy or illegality of Israel" as a major Arab view. When you suddenly switched from "Viability of a Palestinian State" to some fuzzy "future of Israel" in place of "Israel as a Jewish state", you confirmed it too, so why deny it?
I am wondering, what is that mysterious "future" that you refer to. You shyly ignored Spain/Basques and Turkey/Kurds. Perhaps you may try to assert that British-N. Irish conflict is about the "future of the UK"? Note, none of these states' existence is threatened by their local conflicts.
Everyone is entitled to their own POV. You may deny documented facts, but you cannot make WP do it. Comoros & Co. are not the leaders but rather followers. BTW, someone here insisted that Qatar is not a part of the AIC: see [7]. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The "illegit/illegal" point is not "proudly brandished" as you say. I have denied no documented facts. I am denying your POV characterization of this conflict, which is quite different.

The conflict is about both the past and the present. Now, the State of Israel is a fait accompli, and its future existence is not significantly part of the present facts aside from political rhetoric. That is to say, the future is about borders, treaties, terrorism, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, settlements, reparations, refugees, and the like. To this end, the "future" is about this basket of issues... the very "existence of a Jewish state" is not a major present fact, except in empty rhetoric and propangada from both sides.

It's like describing al-Q and the USA as "The conflict is about the very existence of the United States": it's just silliness to characterize the conflict in that way. Yes, al-Q doesn't want USA to exist. But to characterize it in such a way is useful for politically expediency to exaggerate threats and make the USA (or Israel) as a STATE appear to be under grave danger, just as the statement you are arguing for does.

P.S., You should well know that I am not shy, so, as for Basque/Spain/France, Kurds/Turkey/Iraq, N.Ireland/Ireland/England, I might not be smart enough because I could not understand the parallels you were trying to draw.

P.P.S., So, Morocco is simply a "follower" and not in control over itself... perhaps Syria has its proxies there too??

Lokiloki 10:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

At the center of the AIC, first you tried to assert "Viability of a Palestinian State" (that surely belongs to IPC, not AIC), then you tried to remove "Israel's future as a Jewish state". Is this some kind of revenge for not having your way?
"the future is about borders, treaties, terrorism, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, settlements, reparations, refugees, and the like." - again, you try to confuse the IPC with the AIC. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a separate article and a separate conflict. Surely they are related, for example the Palestinian "right of return" is another euphemism for destruction of Israel.
Please correct me if I misunderstood: perhaps you don't deny that the conflict is about Israel's existence, but rather you think that "Israel's future as a Jewish state" is not important. So what, the Arab leaders made all those inflammatory speeches it's just "empty rhetoric and propangada, and fought all these wars - they didn't mean it! What is important is a "viable" 22nd Arab state. Correct? ←Humus sapiens ну? 12:32, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I said that the conflict evolves and has evolved, and that the very "existence of Israel as a Jewish state" is not realistically at stake currently. You keep bringing up wars from 60 years ago to define the current situation. When I look at "the very existence of the United States", do we hang by a thread because of King George's provocations and taxation without representation?

I do not deny that the message is still used, but it is neither realistic nor central to the reality of the current situation. Indeed, it is disengenuous and propagandist to define the current conflict by the same definitions used for the wars of 60 years ago; it is specious to suggest that Israel hangs by a thin thread, when many of the relationships have evolved and become peaceful, when Israel is militarily powerful and backed by the strongest nation on earth (just confirmed by Bush yesterday), when the basket of issues has matured and split it into those of borders, settlements, reparations, economies, water access, pipelines, global proxies, a Palestinian state, and so on. The central issue is simply not as you define it, and while such a definition would probably be appropriate in the History section, the War of Independence was 60 years ago, and the elements of that time have shifted dramatically and should be represented as such.

Lokiloki 17:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I strongly reject your qualification "disengenuous and propagandist". Numerous compromises were made here for years and months before your arrival. WP accomodates various views (including yours) but WP does not have to reflect only your POV.
"60 years ago": much more recently than Amin al-Husayni and Azzam Pasha, Nasser, Qaddafi, Saddam, papa+baby Assads, Saudi kings, Ahmadinejad, Hamas and Hizballah reiterated this same goal: destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. As even you admit, "the message is still used" and as we know, these are not empty words. Israel's existence as a Jewish state is still threatened in many ways: after open wars didn't work, they try to strangle it with economic boycott (still in effect), covert/proxy wars (still in effect), political measures (still in effect), demographic threat (60 years later, still "viable" 4 million of descendants of refugees ready to flood the Jewish state), so your "pipelines" sound hollow. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:06, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


I am not denying that it does not belong in the article or history article, but I am denying that this message should be the focus of the 1 sentence summary which appears atop the page: it simply is not the case that your definition is the central issue. It just isn't.

Lokiloki 01:01, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

"It just isn't." is your POV unsupported by evidence. Important aspects of the subject should be reflected prominently in a good article. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


Please scroll through the countless times why I have told you why it does not belong as THE major reason. I don't really wish to keep going back and forth on you with this. I have made my position clear. Lokiloki 01:32, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

You mean the pipelines? ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Writing for the enemy

Please, can the both of you reach a middle ground? If the article(s) conform to policies, then we shouldn't be arguing about terms. If there is a policy issue, then bring it up directly. I would like to suggest that both of you work on writing for the enemy, that is to say, exchange POV's for the sake of compromise (Lokiloki should try writing from the Israeli POV while Humus should try from the Arab POV). This will not only mitigate conflict, but will lead to some very interesting edits. —Viriditas | Talk 06:11, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I try to write from a NPOV... in fact, yesterday, I tried to delete an entire section under the "Arab views" part because it was no longer relevant and didn't say anything... but it was restored. Lokiloki 06:18, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but if you can both exchange POV's, and represent the other side fairly, you will establish a good working relationship together. —Viriditas | Talk 06:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't even plan to spend any time on Wikipedia today! ... Lokiloki 06:25, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I want to thank you and Humus for both attempting (in your own way) to improve the articles. A little bit of respect and understanding on both sides will help. —Viriditas | Talk 06:29, 21 March 2006 (UTC)
I am trying to rely strictly on facts and logic. We, the Arabs, cannot have it both ways. ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:30, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

If that was a joke, that was pretty good... ;) Lokiloki 06:33, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Discrepancy

In this article (in table near the end), it says there are about 500 Jews in Morocco as of 2001, but at Jewish exodus from Arab lands it says there are 5,230 . AnonMoos 07:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for watching! If it was I who made the mistake, it was unintentional. ←Humus sapiens ну? 07:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Dispute regarding interpretation of the text of UNSCR 242

There exists divergent subjective interpretations about what the text of the resolution deliberately or benignly "did not state all territories occupied during the conflict, as the framers recognized some territorial adjustments were likely and rejected previous drafts with the word all." Interpretations of deliberate intention is a POV. What "the framers recognized" is a POV. Now, I changed the word from Israel claims, to Israel argues, for a more neutral stance, but it continually gets reverted to Israel notes. This is taking one side over the other. --AladdinSE 01:41, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Note: I find this rephrasing to be acceptable.--AladdinSE 01:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you make sure that whatever changes are finally agreed upon are included in the mirror copies at the top of the page... this article is slated for splitting into 3 separate articles. Lokiloki 01:46, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I accept Moshe's version as a compromise. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:53, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Dispute regarding Jewish loss of property after 1948

The article states: "Most of these Jews [those leaving/fleeing Arab countries] lost most of their property and continue to claim compensation." Given the description at Jewish exodus from Arab lands it seems a real reach to suggest that "most" Jews lost their property, given that that article indicates that only in Egypt and Libya did property confiscations occur (and in Egypt it was described as "hundreds" of Jews, and not the 75,000 in Egypt at the time; and in Libya the confiscations began in 1969, 20 years after the initial conflict). The other large Jewish populations in Morocco, Tunisia, Iraw, and Algeria, who compose the majority of the Jewish populations in 1948 Arab lands, did not experience confiscations, per the article.

Please repair this section.

Lokiloki 03:05, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Change of Column heading in table

The temp development area for this article has a suggested new column heading. The previous one reads, "Jews expelled or who fled from Arab lands (1948 / 2001)". I have changed this to "Jews in Arab lands (1948 / 2001)". I also include a referenced footnote at the bottom that details the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, including the expulsions, flight, and other reasons.

I make these changes for two primary reasons:

1. The heading "Jews expelled or who fled from Arab lands (1948 / 2001)" is nonsensical in that the column then proceeds to list two numbers for each country, e.g., "Morocco 350,000 / 5000": the heading would lead us to believe that in 1948 there were 350,000 Jews fleeing, and then in 2001 there were 5,000 Jews fleeing. These figures actually represent previous and current population, and the simpler heading "Jews in Arab lands" explains this.

2. As the page on Jewish exodus from Arab lands highlights, it is inaccurate to describe this exodus as either ONLY flight OR expulsion. There were a multitude of other reasons that resulted in Jewish exodus (and indeed in some Arab countries, they tried to stem the flow). So the "Jews in Arab lands", besides taking up less room, presents the facts accurately, without requiring a huge column heading that says all the possible reasons that they left (this can be saved for the footnotes).

Of course, I am sure there will be cries of, wait, this isn't fair as the Palestinian side is labeled "Palestinian refugees". First, we are not trying to "balance" out facts -- our goal is to tell the truth. Second, the "Palestinian refugees" is factually based as these are the numbers used by both the CIA and the UN.

Lokiloki 05:11, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki I'm sorry but a lot of this is clear POV. Your assertion that you only want to tell the truth instead of balancing both POVs out is ridiculous as you clearly are only trying to show *your* POV, not all Palestinians left involuntarily either. You continue to attempt to show most of the Jews left because they simply wanted to which is just not true. Some arab rulers only tried to stem the flow of the minority of Jews who signifigantly contributed to their economies, and even then these same rulers enacted laws which created a hostile enviorment to Jews. Also I find your attempt to show that only a few of these people lost any belongings as just silly, first becasue there were more confiscations than you suggest (also you shouldn't cite another wikipedia article) and secondly even if they weren't directly confiscated, they would be indirectly confiscated becasue the emigrating Jews wouldn't be allowed to carry very much of their belongings, similar to the Japanese internment camps in the US during WWII.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 08:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Agree with Moshe 100%. And thanks for being extra polite, maybe I'll learn that one day. 850,000 fled Arab states: $1-billion in property confiscated, Jewish study finds. In addition to the substance, minor detail: on a smaller screen with a larger font that table goes beyond the screen. That is why I made those line breaks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:37, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Humus, I followed your link and found on the very same page this following piece of racist drivel: "The Arabs by nature, are an incited/deluded lots from womb to maturity! Apart from the words of their Qur'an who orders them to kill the non believers, myths, chimeras and exaggerations are most of the information they get from their respective elders who in turn, have received it from their elders... This continuous hate generated at the crib will never end towards the Jews until THE TWO PEOPLES ARE SEPARATED FOREVER!" I presume you find this material as repugnant as I do, and now that you know www.israel-wat.com publishes openly racist material you will refrain from posting links to it on Wikipedia (except perhaps in an article devoted to hate sites on the web). Brian Tvedt 11:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
Brian, I have no idea about or affiliation with www.israel-wat.com. I guess the study may be found elsewhere. But the funniest thing is "These are the words of Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, in an interview published on 6 September 1948 in the Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph". Bad, bad Israel! Cheers. ←Humus sapiens ну? 12:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
No, what Emil Choury is supposed to have said is "the fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing partition and the Jewish State…". But even if Emil Ghoury actually said "The Arabs by nature, are an incited/deluded lots from womb to maturity…" to a Lebanese newspaper(!), that doesn't mean the statement is not racist, it just means that someone found a quote from a self-hating Arab. By the way I didn't make any comment about Israel, only about one very unfunny, racist web site. Please make links to only credible web sites from now on. Brian Tvedt 11:50, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

With regard to the value of Jewish property in Arab States there are figures available from the Israeli Registrar of Foreign Claims. The first record of claims was in 1950 when the total value of claims registered was US$54,032,576. By 1952 this had risen to $86,870,456 of which $1,252,944 was bank accounts. By 1956 the total value of claims registered was $103,373,000 - see Fischbach, 2003, p. 176-7. --Ian Pitchford 12:13, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Moshe, I am simply saying it is POV to have a column heading which describes all Jews who left as either being evicted or fleeing. That is inaccurate. And I agree that not all Pals were evicted, and this is why in this article it never says that... it says "left or fled". Lokiloki 18:03, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


How were Jews in Morocco able to sell their homes if most Jews had most of their property confiscated? [8]
There was an unofficial economic boycott. Jews were no longer able to make a living. In Morocco, they were apparantly not expelled, but since they were no longer able to make a living they had to leave in order to continue to live. They were not prohibited from selling their property, but also could not sell for a fair price since they were in a position of having to leave. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/morocjews.html elizmr 00:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Elizmr, the reason I used the example of the Japanese internment in WWII was becasue a lot of the hardships was indriect. They didn't always get their property confiscated by goverment policy, but rather they had to leave it behind, or to sell it at ridiculous prices, the reason that Ian's number is so low is becasue you cna't claim your belongings if you sold it, even if it was only at .5% of its actual value.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:07, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Problems with splitting

There are problems with the split proposal now, most notable is that the different pages now all contain different material. The temp pages have been edited and contain different information; the current article has been edited and now contains different material. I have tried to reflect the changes from one to another, but it is growing increasingly complex. Lokiloki 20:38, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

One solution is to come to an agreement about the main temp page. Can we agree to move Arab-Israeli conflict/temp over to Arab-Israeli conflict? I would like to do this to preserve the split structure, and argue over the specifics on talk. Please keep an eye on the category watchlist to monitor recent changes. —Viriditas | Talk 23:14, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
I've inserted the same 3 boilerplates to the monolithic article, but I support replacing it with the version from temp. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Tally: 3 support, 0 oppose. —Viriditas | Talk 04:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I thought I was the third person supporting? Yes, I support... thought my initiation of this talk topic indicated such! ;) Lokiloki 10:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

You are the third person, but I wanted to make sure. —Viriditas | Talk 10:24, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I have always been ambivalent about splitting, but I support moving the Temp to here simply to stop the various edit bifurcations which are confusing things. I just worry that splitting will encourage similar edit battles as we've witnessed here yet in 3 different articles: in some ways I can't help but feeling that expanding to three articles will therefore expand my stress and re-awaken various other battles. I am also concerned that the table presented by Humus now outshadows the more important Views and History section. Lokiloki 10:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I guess I would support splitting, although like Loki I am al;so ambivalent. But in the end, I guess if we are going to edit war then I suppose it should be on one article.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Caption edit war

How would you folks feel about blanking the caption to stop the edit war? —Viriditas | Talk 11:15, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Lokiloki 11:16, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't know what that means, can someone explain or provide a link that explains?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:17, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I want to suggest leaving the caption blank as a temporary measure until you folks can agree on neutral wording. Or not. I'm just trying to think of ways to avoid an edit war. This type of solution shouldn't apply in every instance, but with something as insignificant as a caption, it makes sense to leave it blank until there is a consensus. —Viriditas | Talk 11:21, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we should have to do that, I'm sorry but I think if you could just find a problem with anything on wikipedia then delete everything the causes dispute it wouldn't get a whole lot done.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 11:27, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

If there is a consensus for the current caption, then ignore my simple suggestion. I don't think a descriptive caption (which appears to lack citations) is essential to any article, nor worthy of an edit war, however I have myself been involved in one (See Talk:Woman) in the past. —Viriditas | Talk 11:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Scroll up to "Viability of a Palestinian State" above. Lokiloki 11:29, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

My suggestion, all along, has been the more accurate, and NPOV, "The future of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict". Lokiloki 11:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's solve the problem with reliable cites. —Viriditas | Talk 11:34, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that is a viable solution for the caption underneath a map. Lokiloki 11:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see the caption inform the reader with geopolitical facts, rather than some nebulous statement about the "future", which doesn't seem to say much of anything. —Viriditas | Talk 11:41, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
It is not future of some pipelines or borders we are talking about. By skipping "as a Jewish state" in "the future of Israel" we would make a very strong POV statement. The weirdiest thing is, Loki attempts to use this as a retaliation for his failed attempt to insert "Viability of a Palestinian state" that surely belongs in the IPC and not here. As you said it, see #Viability of a Palestinian State above. ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
The term "Jewish state" appears to be correct in this context, so I don't understand Loki's objection. See for example: 1947 UN Partition Plan. —Viriditas | Talk 12:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC) —Viriditas | Talk 11:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Copying from above...

Note: The content of User:Lokiloki's talk from #Viability of a Palestinian State was duplicated here. There is no need to copy a long talk that is just a page above. Removing it to save space. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:37, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Once again, I am proposing the neutral, compromised statement of: "The future of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict". Lokiloki 12:03, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Well lets face it, it is not on the fringe in the Arab world to believe that Israel should not be a Jewish state, in fact I think it is mainstream. While in Palestine most have pragmatically accepted that at least some of Israel will continue to exist as a Jewish state, in the resat of the Arab world they for the most part believe one of three things 1) That Israel should completey cease to exist 2) that Israel should allow the numerous decendents if Palestinian emigrants to return to Israel proper thereby committing demagraphic suicide or 3) the most progressive in the region think that Israel should be a secular state in control in all of Palestine (although this is mostly mere rhetoric covering a belief in one of the two previous conditions.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I really don't wish to get in another argument where I parrot everything I stated above. Arab states recognize Israel. And it is incorrect to reflect the center of this conflict as whether Israel can exist as a Jewish state. It's existence is fait accompli, and the current conflict is about the various offshoots of that existence, such as borders, refugees, territories, natural resources, economic realities, immigration, emigration, reparations, and so on. The very "existence of a Jewish state" may have been primary concern in 1949 etc, but nowadays it just isn't. Lokiloki 12:09, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Although by "current conflict" you mean the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is a different article. It appears accurate to describe this conflict in terms of Israel's existence as a Jewish state and the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights. Somebody should cite sources and put an end to this edit war. —Viriditas | Talk 12:18, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

As I have stated, the current Arab-Israeli conflict nowadays often dovetails with the Pal-Israeli conflict. If the quote is reverted once again, I will POV dispute the article and qualify the caption with the arguments I have made above. It is POV to state the conflict in those terms. Lokiloki 12:26, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

With no help from me (notice I haven't reverted) I have a feeling we will be seeing the POV tag in any case. BTW, the caption is starting to read like the missing second paragraph in the lead section. Why not move the caption to the lead and replace the caption with actual, neutral geographical data? —Viriditas | Talk 12:30, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

That is what I am TRYING TO DO! I originally had it as "The future of Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Golan is at the center of this battle" But Humus kept reverting it.

I meant to add above: When bin Laden says that he will destroy America, only the propagandists on both sides use that to present that war for the very "existence of the United States". Most people accept that the US is not in fatal danger, that the conflict involves multiple fronts & multiple subtleties & multiple centers, and that only those who wish to promote the war or their views describe it in such stark, black & white, and unrealistic terms.

Lokiloki 12:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


Its really not, there are two arab states that recognize Israel, and they do so for practical reasons (As Egypt and Jordan and the most western-aligned arab nations) The future of the Gaza strip and the West bank implies the future of the Palestinian state is part of the conflict.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:32, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Morocco? Lokiloki 12:33, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


The Pal state IS part of the A-I conflict, because it is a potent symbol for all Arab people, Arab nations, and the increase in global terror related to that: they all cite Pal as a major instigator. And the rise of al-J and others has increased the exposure and raised the issue significantly. Lokiloki 12:35, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to revert you Loki, only because you violated the WP:3RR. —Viriditas | Talk 12:39, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
How did I violate the 3RRs? Lokiloki 12:43, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
you reverted 4 times in 24 hours.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Where? I believe I reverted 3 times; the last time was revising your content with the other content, with no reversion. Lokiloki 12:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
I count six reverts five reverts, in whole or in part: [9], [10], [11], [12], [13]. —Viriditas | Talk 12:54, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I only see 3! The other 3 are ADDING content. Lokiloki 12:57, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't post the links where you added content, only to full or partial reverts to previous versions. —Viriditas | Talk 13:00, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

The time when I stated this in the edit field "-- moshe you agreed in my talk that this was an okay compromise... can we stick with this? at least for the time being" was an edit not a reversion... I added the "and the viability of a pal state" directly. Lokiloki 12:53, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

You can't revert six times five times, Loki. —Viriditas | Talk 12:55, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I really got to go to bed seeing as how I have class in 5 hours and 45 minutes so I don't think I want to get into anything just this second.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:57, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I didn't revert 6 times... I reverted 3 times. The other 3 times were additions of content. The 3RR rule states "undoing the actions of another editor in whole or part". How would ADDING content be considered a revert? If that is the case, how is anyone immune from this rule whenever they add content?? Lokiloki 12:59, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Those diffs weren't included in the revert count. Contact an admin (add the help me tag) and have them explain it to you. —Viriditas | Talk 13:01, 23 March 2006 (UTC)
Here's what I see:
  1. Your edit at 12:42, 23 March 2006 [14] reverted to "the viability of a Palestinian state" from your edit at 12:24, 23 March 2006. [15].
  2. Your edit at 12:37, 23 March 2006 [16] reverted to the version at 11:31, 23 March 2006, [17]
  3. Your edit at 12:00, 23 March 2006. [18] reverted to the version at 11:14, 23 March 2006. [19]
  4. Your edit at 11:14, 23 March 2006 [20] reverted to the version at 10:57, 23 March 2006 [21].
  5. Your edit at 10:57, 23 March 2006 [22] reverted to my version at 10:28, 23 March 2006 [23]

POV Dispute

Until the caption can be worded in a NPOV, accurate, and comprehensive manner, I am disputing the POV of this article. Lokiloki 12:44, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: why does my edit keep getting removed: there seems to be a problem with the database. —Viriditas | Talk 12:45, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I have three concerns:

1. Israel was created 58 years ago which means that the Arab-Israeli conflict is 58 years old only. However, the Arabs-Zionists conflict might be a century old or more.
2. The Arab nations did not refuse to create a Palestinian State without the destruction of Israel. This is misleading because they refused to accept creating Israel on the land of Palestine at all. Big difference!
3. The Jewish displaced communities needs a reference. All the sources that I have read indicated that Jewsih communities were not forced out of Arab countries as the article suggests. They have, however, chosen to immigrate to Palestine before and after the establishment of Israel.

Please Keep the NPOV as far as these points are not clarified.--62.8.126.134 13:22, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually there are ample sources that are referenced that contradict your third point.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk-TINC 04:15, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

What is at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict

Among Loki's agressive edits, s/he changed the stable caption Israel's existence as a Jewish state and the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights are at the center of the conflict to include "Viability of a Palestinian State". My arguments against this change may be found in the section #Viability of a Palestinian State above, I can summarize them again if necessary. Loki's objections didn't work for me and it seems they didn't work for him/her either, because s/he decided to give up the "Viability..." and instead removed "Israel's existence as a Jewish state". No major Arab leader accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, and if necessary, a ton of mainstream quotes and numbers may be brought to support the mainstream position that the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state is the culprit of the AIC. I feel that it is a waste of time to negotiate every newcomers' every tantrum, but if that's what it takes, so be it.←Humus sapiens ну? 00:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that this phraseology accurately reflects the center of the CURRENT conflict -- as I have stated many times, even if people impotently threaten the existence of Israel, the very "existence of Israel as a Jewish state" is not at risk. The conflict has evolved into far more than that black or white, simplistic, and POV way of framing this conflict; I do not doubt that the "existence of Israel as a Jewish state" was an accurate way to describe, for example, the initiation of this conflict, but it is an inaccurate descriptor for the current conflict. I believe that the more accurate "the future of Israel" is more appropriate, and this phrasing was accepted by others; it better reflects the subtleties, dimensions, and realities of the current conflict, rather than using propagandist phrasing to suggest that Israel's plight is dire, critical, and immediate. I have tried multiple times to offer several variations on the captions, but you continually revert. As soon as my 24-hour revert is complete, I do plan to edit the caption again to better reflect this topic comprehensively, neutrally, and accurately. You have failed to accept any compromised phrase, any middleground, or anything but "your way or the highway". And so long as you continue to demand your way or no way, I will retain the POV dispute on the article page. Lokiloki 00:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Please, can everyone review Wikipedia:Captions. If there is another edit war, I will remove the caption. It sounds to me me like the information that Humus and Lokiloki are arguing about should be (or already is) included in a lead section and should not be included as a caption. —Viriditas | Talk 00:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I will accept the deletion of the caption as a compromise. I believe that the amount of qualifying that will soon take place in the caption will reduce its effectiveness. Lokiloki 00:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It looks like there is a consensus to keep this information in the article. To be clear, I am saying that it doesn't belong in a caption. I recommend that you folks work it out on talk and refrain from edit warring on the main page. —Viriditas | Talk 01:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
As far as I recall, the stable caption was an compromise when someone added this map long ago. If we are to show this map, not to include clause "as a Jewish state" is unacceptable POV statement. BTW, we are not saying "immediate", our text is "continued existence" or simply "existence".
Loki, since when did the conflict "evolve"? What was the date or event? What major Arab leaders has accepted Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state? Not even counting overt/covert/proxy/ecomonic/politics... As of 2005, 4+ million of Palestinian "refugees" (in quotes because 58 years after 1948, they are mostly descendents) are being kept by Arab states in misery to be ready to demographically flood Israel with their claimed "right of return". Was RoR given up?
What does the "future of Israel" mean? Maybe what party will win the elections? It is nothing but a propagandist WP:WEASEL. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I very strongly agree with Humus on the above. I feel that this page is currently undergoing an attempt to strong arm everything written in it to conform to one very strong pov. This is not appropriate to the goals of Wikipedia. elizmr 01:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Why aren't sources being cited (and attributed) for the caption? This would end the edit war. —Viriditas | Talk 01:35, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

One of the reasons you didn't want the "Palestinian state viability" in the caption was because this was an Arab-Israeli conflict, and not a Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But then you mention the Palestinian refugee status and the right of return as one of the demographic threats to Israel, and as one of the reasons for your captioning. Since you therefore accept that the issue of Palestinian refugees is a component of Israel's "existence as a Jewish state", it makes sense to reflect their status, which figures prominently in the larger Arab psyche and most immediately in terms of their "threat" to Israel, in the caption.

Lokiloki 01:36, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I am aginst turning Arab-Israeli conflict into Israeli-Palestinian conflict: these are two different but related of course conflicts. I can explain the diff. again.
The "viability of a Palestinian state" is a pretext. There has never existed a Palestinian state and, as Proposals for a Palestinian state clearly show, the Arab leaders consistently - for decades (and as late as 2000) - refused to create one. OTOH, the ever-growing population of the Palestinian refugees is definitely a part of AIC because of potential right of return.
BTW, I am trying my best to address my opponent's questions/concerns and it would be nice to have some reciprocity. I have asked some questions in my prev. post. Please be so kind to answer them. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I believe I have made most of my points a few times. As the cold war ended, and as military and other aid flowed from the United States to Israel, and as Israel became the military power in the region, and as no Arab member countries are actively at war with Israel, and as the Arab media focuses extensively on the plight of the Palestinians, and as the "Arab street" finds common cause with the Palestinians, and as the occupied territories and treatment of Palestinians therein becomes the dominant focus in fact and media, and as the shift comes down to terrorism, settlements, checkpoints, walls, and unilaterality, and as the conflict becomes a tool for some Arab leaders to distract their populations from their own treatement, and as the United States establishes itself militarily in neighbouring countries... these are some of the reasons for the evolution. Simply: it is inaccurate to describe Israel's existence as a Jewish state as the CENTER of the conflict. That is all I am saying. Why can't you agree to phrasing which reflects the evolution of the conflict? Lokiloki 02:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Loki--Humus can't agree to phrasing which reflects the evolution of the conflict because your view of the conflict (even though you think it is the only correct analysis) isn't the only view. No matter how many times you repeat yourself, you have to realize that Wikipedia isn't here to express one point of view. You have to let others express theirs too. elizmr 02:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the problem here is whether or not sources are being quoted for one caption, because if this caption thing gets ironed out, then the conflict will move to another point and so on and so forth. I enjoyed reading this page when I first started editing Wikipedia because of the variety of views expressed. I was especially impressed by the tenor of the page and the mutual respect long time editors showed in their writing and discussions. Over the last couple of weeks a new belligerent pattern of editing has started that is not in keeping with Wikipedia goals and principles. elizmr 02:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I would love to honestly say that there's no threat to Israel's existence as a Jewish state, but I can't. Not until the Palestinian "right of return" is annulled.
Loki, duly noting how you conveniently skipped the questions I posed. To your points: I question your expertise as a military analyst. The Arab economic boycott of Israel is still ongoing. Even IF (big question) all-out wars are over with the end of the Cold War, covert/proxy wars are still ongoing, as well as political pressures.
"the Arab media focuses extensively on the plight of the Palestinians" - it also focuses on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion#Middle East, would we say it is also a reason for the AIC conflict? Let's not mix pretexts serving to escalate public opinion with facts.
"occupied territories" - There was no "occupied territories" or "settlements" before 1967, but the wars and Arab popular hatred were the same. Also see the List of military occupations.
"treatment of Palestinians" - According to you, the Arab leaders who keep the Palestinians for generation in misery in refugee camps to use them as pawns and incite Palestinian children to become suicide bombers are "pro-Palestinian". Israelis are not angels, but Israeli "treatment of Palestinians" at the center of the AIC? See Black September in Jordan. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I find Loki's tactics to browbeat the opposition conceited and disruptive. WP works on collaboration, convincing others and building consensus.
Ironically, none of the BBC links Loki added even mention the word "viable" in regards to the proposed Palestinian state (plus proposed flooding Israel with millions of Arabs), but do include words of Israeli FM spokesman: "This means the destruction of the state of Israel". So much for Loki's denial, post-Cold War, etc. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Viriditas said that citations would help. I provided citations to demonstrate that the Palestinian state, and its viability, is indeed a central part of the Arab requirements for peace. Presumably the refugee threat to Israel is implicitly part of the "existence as a Jewish state", as you mentioned elsewhere. I used the word "viability" to indicate that the possibility of a Palestinian state is part of the conflict: I do not care if a different synonym is used. If indeed this conflict all boils down to the word 'viability', let's indeed get rid of it, or use something else... "possibility" or "future" or "aspects" or "details". How about one of those?

I changed it to "issue of Palestinian statehood". How about that?

Lokiloki 21:45, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I think we are dealing with severe case of tunnel vision. This proposal means the destruction of the state of Israel", and to present it simply as an "issue of Palestinian statehood" is totally inappropriate. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What are you talking about? The proposal contains several things, one of which is the right of return, and which the Israeli representive calls the "destruction of Israel". And, as you have already stated elsewhere, the issue of demographic shifts are already reflected in the phrase "existence of a Jewish state".

I really do not know what you are arguing about at this point: I provided citations indicating that Palestinian statehood is a central component of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and therefore included the additional "the issue of Palestinian statehood". What exactly are you arguing for now? You feel that this should not be included because the same peace PROPOSAL also addresses the right of return? But, as you have already stated, that aspect is reflected in the "existence of a Jewish state".

And, by the way, there is no need to continually bold various aspects of your arguments.

Lokiloki 22:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems that you are changing your position again. First it was the "Viability of a Palestinian State" and as anyone can see, you earlier argued that there is no danger to Israel as a Jewish state and even insisted to remove these words. Now you promote 2002 Saudi plan to create a Palestinian state plus to flood Israel with millions of Arabs, effectively destroying it.
If "the issue of Palestinian statehood" is mentioned, it should be reflected that the Arab leaders consistently refused to create a Palestinian state that would not involve Israel's destruction (embolding means most important). ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:58, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Let's be clear: I am not "promoting" a Saudi plan, but presenting it as citation to support the fact that a Palestinian state is central to this conflict, at least for Arabs. I have done that. I still don't know what you are arguing about. What do you disagree with about the current caption?

The current caption reads: "Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights; and the issue of Palestinian statehood [24][25] are at the center of the conflict."

Now that citations have been provided for the Palestinian statehood issue, and given the contention that a threat to Israel's existence is still ongoing and is reflected in the "Israel's existence as a Jewish state" part, what disputes do you have about this caption?

Lokiloki 23:15, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Loki: please be clear, make up your mind and stop bullying. It won't work.
"a Palestinian state is central to this conflict" is a claim (related to the IPC) and not a fact. The relevant facts are listed in Proposals for a Palestinian state. Therefore, if "the issue of Palestinian statehood" is mentioned, not to say that the Arab leaders consistently refused to create a Palestinian state that would not involve Israel's destruction would be misleading POV reflecting only one side and revising history. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:32, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi again. Definitions of what is "central" to this conflict are difficult, not least because both sides will have different perspectives. There are no clear-cut "facts" as to what is central, and what is not. You have maintained that Israel's destruction is central, and this is reflected in the beginning portion of the caption "Israel's existence as a Jewish state"; I maintain that Israel's existence is fait accompli, and, apart from the unlikely eventuality of nuclear war, that there are no extant or likely facts to actually threaten Israel. The fact that the issue of refugees is viewed differently from both sides -- that Israel sees it as a demographic threat to their existence as a Jewish state (but presumably not as a threat to Israel as a state), and that Arabs view it along compliance with UN resolutions demanding "right of return" -- presents the difficulty and controversy in representing this conflict neutrally. Regardless, the threat is reflected in the current version.

So too, I have demonstrated via citation that Arabs view the existence of a Palestinian state as central to their peace with Israel; you maintain that this is not a fact, as Arab leaders have historically rejected such existence. But the fact that it is cited again and again by Arab leaders indicates that, at least to them, it is central to their perspective. You might counter that this is a cynical ploy. But, like the issue of refugees and the differing perspectives therein, this component, and its differing interpretations, is clearly central to the issue. For this reason, I believe that "the issue of Palestinian statehood" is most neutral, and does not expound needlessly about the background on this issue (which is better left for the main article).

Thanks, Lokiloki 23:37, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Weaseling won't work either. if "the issue of Palestinian statehood" is mentioned, we should say that the Arab leaders consistently refused to create a Palestinian state that would not involve Israel's destruction. That would reflect historical facts. You can't have it both ways. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:44, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Be careful what you wish for. If we should not "expound needlessly about the background", then some would say: fine, let's start with the situation as of 2002. History is of vital importance here. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:53, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Until the dispute is resolved, I have commented out Israel's map with no caption: it is unclear why is it here. This is not Israeli-Palestinian conflict nor internal Israel's matter. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:29, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
That was your 4th revert in 24 hours. Lokiloki 00:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Compare the revisions: they are completely different. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi Humus: Please review the 3-revert rule policy, which states that a revert is considered undoing the work, in part or in whole, of another editor. Thanks, Lokiloki 02:55, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

RfC

I'm putting this article on RfC. —Viriditas | Talk 01:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree this article should be on RFc. elizmr 01:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
For background, please see #Viability of a Palestinian State, #Caption edit war, and #What is at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lokiloki 02:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
as do I- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Informal poll

There is a dispute regarding the caption of Image:Cia-is-map.gif in this article. Versions of the caption under discussion may be viewed at Arab-Israeli conflict/temp.

Please sign your name using four tildes (~~~~) in the voting section, beneath the caption, with Support or Oppose and a brief comment. You may add at least one new caption to this list as well as vote once for each caption.

  • Caption 1: Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
  • Caption 2: Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights; and the viability of a Palestinian state are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
  • Caption 3: The future of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
  • Caption 4: The CIA World Factbook's map of Israel.
  • Caption 5: No caption, no map.

Vote

Caption 1

Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

  1. This is a stable version. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:12, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  2. I agree- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 09:21, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  3. I agree elizmr 20:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Caption 2

Israel's existence as a Jewish state; the future of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights; and the viability of a Palestinian state are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

  1. disagree---The Arab Israeli conflict needs to be distinguished from the Israel-Palestine conflict. elizmr 21:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Even if the Arab nations see it as critical to an Arab-Israeli peace? [26] Lokiloki 21:05, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Loki--this is a bizarre little cite to base a statement like that on. elizmr 01:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
How so? It indicates that the Arabs view the issue of a Palestinian state as central to their involvement in the AIC. Lokiloki 02:06, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
sure, i'm not saying it is unimportant, but to claim centrality of an issue to a very long-standing conflict when the A's behavior until recently has been inconsistent with any centrality for this issue and then base on one BBC news brief seems a bit thin (think this is not the place to have this argument) elizmr 17:41, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
Caption 3

The future of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights are at the center of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

  1. This would be my second choice. elizmr 21:04, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Caption 4

The CIA World Factbook's map of Israel.

  1. How about this? :) Ashibaka tock 23:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Caption 5

No caption, no map.

Discussion

We are not voting on whether or not the Arab-Israeli conflict is occurring. This is an attempt at dispute resolution. —Viriditas | Talk 02:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • I further object to the idea of "voting" for a particular phrasing, not least because the majority of editors here typically edit from a pro-Israel standpoint. We should seek to counter systemic bias such as this. Lokiloki 02:07, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Current surveys. —Viriditas | Talk 02:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
Then why did you not reflect the poll in the Wikipedia:Current_surveys section? A Wikipedia:Requests for comment is not a poll, but a request for comments.Lokiloki 02:14, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
This is an informal poll. It has not yet reached the stage of an official survey, nor has anyone agreed to it. It is one attempt at dispute resolution. The RfC will help bring in other opinions. —Viriditas | Talk 02:24, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • As I've mentioned earlier, one solution to the caption dispute is to cite sources. It occurs to me that both Bernard Lewis and Edward Said have made interesting comments about the Arab-Israeli conflict, so maybe we could use them as sources. This is only a suggestion, and if anyone has any recommendations, please share them. —Viriditas | Talk 09:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
    • I provided citations indicating that a Palestinian state is a key component of Arab requirements for a peace proposal with Israel. I believe that this sufficiently demonstrates that the viability of a Palestinian state is central. Lokiloki 21:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
  • This vote is a waste of time. We already know how Humus, Moshe, and Elizmr feel. Lokiloki 19:48, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Response to Lokiloki

What are you talking about Loki? you are the one that is disputing a lot of this, viridatas is trying to sum up the conflict. Also there are more quite a few anti-Israel editors that edit this page but don't participate on the talk page, and besides you are much more prolific an editor then any of the editors with an opposite pov here. It should be clear of this when you are the only one that is able to really change things around on the article while everyone else just attempts to keep up with your various edits.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 02:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

"Anti-Israel"? I strenuously object to that characterization. I think you will find that my edits are not very large, although they are frequent since I save frequently. Further, you will find that I always provide citations, and that, if anything, the edits could be described as "pro-Arab": to characterize them as "anti-Israel" is objectionable. As well, I feel it is impolite to suggest that frequent editing is somehow wrong. Lokiloki 02:33, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
I'm not saying that there is anything wrong with editing a lot, I think it's great when people are making NPOV or non-controversial edits, I can get kinda irritated though when almost every edit a person makes only represents their POV, I am also saying that you shouldn't really complain that there are too many pro-israel editors on this talk page when you edit substantially more than all of them combined.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:17, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I feel that your characterization of me, by implication, as an anti-Israel editor is libellous. Lokiloki 03:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Can you folks move the above discussion to your respective talk pages? We're supposed to only discuss the article, here. —Viriditas | Talk 03:28, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Give me a break, besides the fact that I didn't specifically call you anti-Israel, it would only be libelious if I didn't back it up with fact- you have consistently removed references that showed Israel in everything besides a negative light, you changed anything that showed that the Jewish refugees lost any substantial property and you insisted on including a passage about Israel being the main reason of the emigration. I find your reaction to be clearly disingenuous.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:30, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

You continue to revise the history of my contributions to these articles. And since you do so on this topic, rather than on our talk pages, I feel that a response here is necessary. I did not change "anything that shows that the Jewish refugees lost any substantial property" -- in fact, there, I changed it to reflect reality, that MANY Jews lost MOST of their property. This was more accurate than the previous "most Jews". If I deleted anything, it was due to lack of citations. And Israel's pro-emigration policies did impact the Jewish immigration to Israel: I simply added this as a factor for the exodus, rather than the previous description which placed everything on the hostility of Arab nations. Again, your implication of my anti-Israel editing, and your previous implication of my anti-Semitism, are libellous statements; I feel that these do not belong here, and I will take the appropriate action within Wikipedia. Last night you removed the entire sentence claiming that Sharon's visit to TM was responsible for the 2nd intifada: I do not call you, or this edit, as "anti-Arab". Lokiloki 03:55, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah right, where did I claim you are anti-semitic, SHOW ME, you can't because I didn't. You act hurt when you claim I mischaracterize what you said, then you stuff words in my mouth that I never even suggested, give me a break.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:59, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I would be glad to... if I can find out how to get back to the Archive of this discussion area... "Archive 8" above isn't working apparently. Lokiloki 04:06, 24 March 2006 (UTC)
good luck because your not going to find anything because I didn't write it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:57, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

and I deleted what your claim that that "there is consensus in international media that Sharon 's visit caused the 2nd intifada" simply because it wasn't true, even your own source explained that tensions were already high, and I would love for you to "take the necesasry actions".- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:02, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

That's an interesting interpretation of an article titled "'Provocative' mosque visit sparks riots" [27]. Lokiloki 23:25, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Sparks riots not intifada. Anyways even though it says sparks it doesn't neccessarily mean it solely caused them, it also mentions that it was already a sensitive time because of the failed peace talks.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 23:54, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

BBC is biased. Eyewitness: Inside ruined Jenin. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Moshe posted the following and then deleted it:

I know they're right, the battle in Jenin rivaled World War II for shear brutality! Did you know out of a pre-battle population of only about 50,000 they suffered over 1 million casualties? can you imagine what that could do to the city's economy?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I am "restoring" this because I believe it examples the type of bias found in this article. While one can certainly argue about the presentation of this story in the media, I feel it is both crude and insensitive to make light of the actual deaths that did occur there.

Thanks, Lokiloki 02:59, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Once again your misrepresenting what I actually wrote, I was making lights of the exagerated casualty rates not the actual deaths, though I soppose I should thank you for just being misleading instead of outright lying like last time.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:44, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Oh and by the way, any luck finding my statement where I called you an anti-semite yet? It shouldn't be that hard, you can access the archives at the top of this page.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:45, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Map and cutline

I don't know what the issues are here, but there's been a 3RR complaint about the map and cutline edits. Perhaps you could all decide here on talk whether to have the map, and what the cutline should say, before reinserting it. Cheers, SlimVirgin (talk) 01:31, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

First paragraph edit

First sentence

The Arab Israeli Conflict is a long-running conflict in the Middle East concerning Zionist and subsequent immigration of non-local Jews, joining the existing Jewish population in the British Mandate of Palestine, their claim to self-determination in the Land of Israel and, after the establishment of the State of Israel, the country's relations with the Arab states and the Palestinian population (see Israeli-Palestinian conflict).

This sentence is can be improved by making it shorter and easier to read. It is especially important since this description is the first sentence in the article, and serves as the definition. Here are my proposed changes:

  • "Zionist and subsequent immigration" = "Zionist and non-Zionist immigration" = "immigration". One can expand on different waves of immigration in later sections. Think of it as substituting "adult men and adult women" for "people". (Please, add your comments on this substitution here instead of the end of this section.CommonGround 23:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC))
Sorry, Zionism is a salient part of this conflict, and it is insufficient to assume that the word "immigration" somehow reflects the particulars of zionism. Lokiloki 23:41, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Zionism is definitely relevant to this article. My point is not that the word "immigration" somehow reflects the particulars of Zionism; my point is that saying "Zionist and non-Zionist immigration" is the same as saying "immigration".
I think you are saying that since Zionism is so relevant to this article, it should be mentioned in the first sentence (sorry if I misunderstood). However, there are other movements (e.g Arab Nationalism), wars, agreements, etc. that are very relevant as well. I believe that the right thing to do is to expand on their importance in the body of the article, instead of trying to mention all of them in the opening sentence. Thanks! CommonGround 23:54, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Since there is already mention of Jewish immigration in the start, it is important to indicate that Zionism was a main focus of this pre-1949. Lokiloki 23:57, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
You could just as easily say incresing arab nationalism was important pre-1949 with the various Arab riots, I agree with common ground the best thing is to elaborate on all of that later in the article.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 23:59, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, if such simplification is needed, the whole sentence could be pared down. To remove the Zionism part, yet to include references to "immigration of Jews to the British Mandate of Palestine to join the existing Jewish population, their claim to self-determination in the Land of Israel and, after the establishment of the State of Israel" could be edited considerably and explained elsewhere too. Lokiloki 00:01, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree! Let's pair it down! How about "Arab Israeli conflict consitutes a series of wars and political tensions between the Arab states, Israel, and the Palestinian population (see Israeli-Palestinian conflict)." or "Arab Israeli conflict ecompasses the X, Y and Z war, first and second intifada, and the political tensions between Arab countries and Israel before and after its establishment."CommonGround 00:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That sounds pretty good. Check out the version I used. Btw, when you reply on here, remember to add one more colon so as to indent your addition a bit more than the previous content. Lokiloki 00:21, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Instead of saying a "series of wars and disputes" why don't we just simplify it to "conflict"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:25, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Since conflict is already part of the title, rather than be redundant, it might be good to add a bit more in terms of the history and current situation... Lokiloki 00:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Agreed.. Ok, I'll clean up the definition in my post above and post it on the page, since there seems to be an agreement. CommonGround 01:43, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
How about just dispute then, I think "series of wars and disputes" doesn't really explain it very well because it sorta implies that there is no conflict in between each of the wars and disputes, I think if we just say "dispute" or "conflict" or "insert synonym" it gives more of an idea of the continutity.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
  • "The Arab Israeli Conflict is a ... conflict concerning ... immigration of ...Jews, joining the ... population, their claim ... and ...the country's relations". The current sentence structure makes it sound as if the conflict concerns the "joining" as much as it concerns "the country's relations". I suggest removing the comma in front of "joining" (concerning ... immigration of ...Jews joining the ... population, their claim)
(Please, add your comments on this substitution here.CommonGround 23:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC))

BTW, the conflict (lowcase "C") is more 60 years old. It began at least in 1920s (BTW, most of the Jews hurt then were non-Zionist old yishuv) with Riots in Palestine of 1920, Jaffa riots, Riots in Palestine of 1929 and the Great Uprising of 1936-39. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:45, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the new intro:
1) Do we want to list all the wars so early? Is "includes" the correct verb? I can't come up with a better one right now. Also, should we at least mention the violence of 1920s-1930s?
2) Since we already say "spanning nearly a century", I think "long-running" is redundant.
3) "the Arab states, Palestinian Arabs, and Israel, before and after its founding" - I think Jewish self-determination is important enough to be mentioned. Also, some Arab states are not much older or even younger than Israel (e.g. Trans-Jordan got its independence in 1946). Don't know how to reflect this properly. ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:40, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
After rereading the new intro, it is unclear what the conflict, century of wars and political tension are all about. I think we need to say something about that. Thoughts? ←Humus sapiens ну? 11:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
The new sentence reads very badly, and the reference to Jewish self-determination isn't relevant... "it concerns Jewish self-determination"... huh? Lokiloki 16:26, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
A good intro should outline the article's subject. What is this one-century-old conflict all about? Let's improve the text to make it encyclopedic and readable. For history (list of wars, etc), there is a History section & subarticle History of the Arab-Israeli conflict. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
"Jewish self-determination isn't relevant" - your POV. Why did the Arab armies attack in 1948? ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:41, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Because of the creation of the State of Israel? The notion of self-determination is presumably part of that creation, and its inclusion is unnecessary: we aren't spelling out the entire history of Israel, but a history of the conflict. Lokiloki 23:09, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Second sentence

Some uses of the term Middle East conflict referring to this matter, but the region has been host to other disputes and wars not directly involving Israel.

It might be more grammatically correct to say: "Some uses of the term Middle East conflict refer to this matter; however, the region has been host to other disputes and wars not directly involving Israel. Not sure why this edit was reverted, but by all means, please, add your comments here. CommonGround 23:17, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

People around the world, versus countries

I think "people around the world" is a bit vague, as there is a history of other countries, expanded on later in the documents, involved in this country, not least the USSR, UK, USA, Iran, EU, UN, etc etc. "People around the world" doesn't reflect the involvement of countries in this conflict. Lokiloki 00:10, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The previous version said "people in other countries"... We can say "Many countries and individual people". CommonGround 00:24, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I agree with both, "people" doesn't imply governments, and "countries" doesn't imply individuals and NGOs, maybe we could say "Many countries, individuals and non-governmental organizations"?- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 03:08, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That sounds good. Lokiloki 03:57, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
I know it sounds good. After all I wrote it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 04:02, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

POV tag

Again Loki attempts to turn this article into a clone of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Hence the POV tag. We have discussed the viability of the Palestinian state already. Wanna do it again? No problem here. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I am not sure of the purpose of denying facts: this isn't a caption, but a longer introduction, and the facts and issues surrounding the West Bank/Gaza/Palestinian State is central to the Arab views of this conflict (as per the Saudi peace plan). It is one thing to present lots of detail, in the intro, about the self-determination of Jews which is redundant... but it is pretty errant to then blot out any reference to the Arab views of what facts are important to this conflict. Should we deny the facts that Arabs view as important from the introduction, and present only those that Israel sees as important? Lokiloki 00:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
"the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the establishment of Israeli settlements therein" is PLO propaganda. This sentence makes false impression that these areas were not occupied before 1967 - by Egypt & Jordan, the Brits, the Ottomans, etc. or that Israeli occupation is somehow especially brutal.
You already acknowledged that this is only a view (and we need to distinguish fact from opinion), therefore this belongs to the Views subarticle, and not to this article's intro. This is the same as failed "But it is in the Arab media" argument: then we would need to add The Protocols of the Elders of Zion prominent in that media as a pat of the conflict. As we saw earlier the Saudi 2002 plan was just another attempt to destroy Israel.
Since the AIC was in full force well before the Israeli occupation & settlements and nothing changed in this century-old conflict after 1967, this doesn't belong to the intro but to Views. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I am saying that there are a series of facts. These facts include things like the creation of Israel, the 6 days war, the occupation of the West Bank, the Israeli settlements, the flight of Jews, the expulsion of Arabs, and so on. There are VIEWS on which FACTS are important to this conflict. The current views reflected are from the perspective of Israel. It makes sense to fairly balance the views of which facts are referenced by both parties to the conflict. That means, we need to present the facts which Arabs feel are important to this conflict. Lokiloki 00:33, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
It seems we are in agreement that the introduction to the Arab-Israeli conflict should neutrally and briefly outline facts relevant to this conflict. I don't think the intro is written "from the perspective of Israel". Care to elaborate?
Back to the subject: occupation & settlements do not belong in the intro here. For views, we have Views section/subarticle and for propaganda, Propaganda article. Please make up your mind: when it is convenient for you, you argue that the situation has improved after the Cold War, by your new logic, more settlements would intensify the AIC conflict. ←Humus sapiens ну? 01:01, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
I've removed the tag, together with "occupation & settlements" POV. ←Humus sapiens ну? 22:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Fixing excessively long introductory paragraph

I have removed all of the lengthy reasons for the conflict in the first paragraph, I feel my version is a good compromise, since I have removed anything that really shows a certain POV, (like "self-determination" for both the Palestinians and the Jews). Please, don't add any more reasons that you feel has been left out and *simply* must be included becasue that will once again lead to a chain-reaction and the paragrpah will become just as unreadable as last time.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 01:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. Lokiloki 01:51, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I know its perfect, after all look who wrote it.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 05:22, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

OK, something along these lines. A couple of corrections, and I'll leave the (re)wording up to you: 1) I think that if Palestinian Arabs are mentioned in the intro, the Jews from Arab countries should be mentioned as well (see the History section); 2) Jewish nation-state, or Jewish state. Thanks. ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:00, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with Humus' insertion suggestions. If we include those, and are going to that level of detail, please also include the viability of a Palestinian state, too. Lokiloki 02:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
The link to Proposals for a Palestinian state is already in the History section. We already talked about its "viability".
It is only fair to either mention both Jewish and Palestinian refugees or none. ←Humus sapiens ну? 02:20, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
Okay, so since we present the establishment of the State of Israel, surely we then must present the viability of a Palestinian State as an issue, as clearly it is. That is "fair", no? Incidentally, nothing is mentioned of refugees: it simply mentions the state of Israel and their relationship with the Palestinian Arab population which is effectively stateless: they are not an "Arab state" (yet)... how else should they be reflected in the conflict? Lokiloki 02:25, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
I know a few families of Iraqi and Egyptian Jews who were expelled by the countries of their birth. They did not immigrate to Israel and live in the West. If I understand you correctly, they (and many thousands like them; I don't know an intl. agency that supports or counts them) deserve to be mentioned in the intro only together with the "viability of a Palestinian State". How are these two related?
Since you do not insist on mentioning any refugees in the intro, so won't I. As an alternative to the current 2nd paragraph, I propose to change "Arab states" to "Arab nations": 1) some Arab states came into existence after Israel; 2) the proponents of the Palestinian cause seem to insist that the Palestinians are a separate Arab nation. I would leave "(see related Israeli-Palestinian conflict)" as a compromise:
The Arab-Israeli conflict spans about a century of political tensions and open hostilities. It involves the establishment of the modern State of Israel as a Jewish nation state, as well as the relationship between the Arab nations and the state of Israel (see related Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Some uses of the term Middle East conflict refer to this matter; however, the region has been host to other conflicts not involving Israel (see List of conflicts in the Middle East). ←Humus sapiens ну? 04:10, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I like the intro above. elizmr 13:24, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
I suppose I agree I have changed the wording.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 00:24, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Disambiguation housekeeping notice

Recently, a user added an article about the Avalon Hill board game "The Arab-Israeli Wars". This caused some confusion. After some effort, we now have the game detangled from the real wars, as follows:

All relevant links have been updated, pointing to the game or the real world as appropriate.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled dispute. Thank you.

--John Nagle 08:13, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Do we need Views as a separate article?

Please express your views at Talk:Views of the Arab-Israeli conflict/temp#Do we even need this section? ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Iran

I think some light should be given to the fact that though it is often called the Arab-Israeli conflict, it is not really bound by those two groups. It seems a little misleading to present the conflict purely in terms of Arab Nationalism versus Israel. I think some light should be given to the fact that it is a Pan-Islamic movement in the Middle East thus encompassing Iran. Though they have not had a major impact on the conflict militarily, they have had more of an impact than many of the members of the Arab League. --CRobey 20:06, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

FYI, there is Iran-Israel relations linked from here. ←Humus sapiens ну? 21:20, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
This issue keeps coming up - the term "Arab-Israeli conflict" is of course a blatant oversimplification. This is however not a Wikipedia issue, it just so happens that the series of military and diplomatic crisises concerning the existence, and more recently the extend, of the state of Israel are generally refered to as "Arab-Israeli conflict". Both media and international diplomats are using this term, and it is not Wikipedia's job to correct them. -- Heptor talk 20:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't know if this matters for the article, but Iranians aren't Arabs. They're Persians. I'm not sure they should count as an "Arab State" in the graphic, but it might just muck everything up to have a special color for Iran. I leave it up to you all.68.231.159.253 11:41, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think we are all quite aware of that, thank you.- Moshe Constantine Hassan Al-Silverburg | Talk 12:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If it's included as a Primary participant in the template, it should also be included in the map.--Cloviz 21:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Misnomer

The term "Arab-Israeli" conflict is a misnomer. It's not about "Arabs" versus "Israelis", it's about Muslims who want to wipe out Jews. 190 Proof 13:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Nobody bothered to discuss. I'm putting it back. 190 Proof 13:11, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Newspapers, historians and politicians use the term without comment; you'll have to provide a source external to wikipedia before declaring the term a "misnomer." Sdedeo (tips) 19:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Please, remain CIVIL! It's no place for misinformation and propaganda. CG 20:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

With Iran becoming a major player perhaps Islamic-Israeli Conflict is a more accurate title. {unsigned|Andy Stunich}

It may more accurately describe the conflict, however we can't be novel here (see WP:NOR), we have to be encyclopedic so we're stuck with the terminology sources use, and "Islamic-Israeli" conflict is pretty much a neologism. Probably the direction to take is to find sources that address the issue of Iran's part in the "Arab-Israeli" conflict and present what they say about it. --MPerel ( talk | contrib) 02:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Deletion Request: "Arab-Israeli Conflict: Basic Fact" Article Link

If one is to look at the "Arab-Israeli Conflict: Basic Fact" hyperlink located in the "General Sources" section of the article, one can find undoubtedly, extreme bias within that article. The article also has an Israeli domain (.il). I am requesting that it is deleted as a General Source. Please read through the article and surely you will agree with me. --Vikramkr

Infobox map visibility

The blue and red parts of the map on the infobox (Image:Israel and Arab states map k.png) are quite hard to see. It would be good to have another small box within the image zooming in that part of the map. --cesarb 04:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Good idea, I'll put it on my todo list. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

What has happened to this article?

This article has been decimated! I realise there was a split, but currently the article is in an unworkable state. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Considering that it was explosive mess of edit conflicts, I think this version is better. Do you find it hard to navigate or what? ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Are you saying that this is all there is to the conflict? If so, you must be kidding. The history of conflict is (read it!) one paragraph. That's not even close to comprehensive! - Ta bu shi da yu 11:06, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
That was only a summary. I restored the link to the main article that someone removed. The link may be found also in the template. ←Humus sapiens ну? 00:48, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Excuse me, but you miss the point. Are you saying that one paragraph accurately summarises History of the Arab-Israeli conflict? If you are, then you are sadly mistaken. From a read of that paragraph, I have learned almost nothing. Trust me on this one: I have had to write FA standard articles and use summary form, and this is not a good example of summary form. - Ta bu shi da yu 15:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Somalia an Arab nation?

Doesn't it have an African majority? Why is it on the map? Auspx 01:58, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

From Somalia Demographics and languages section (as of April 2006; just copying my response to another individual who asked the same question on another page): "As early as the seventh century, indigenous Cushitic peoples began to mingle with Arab and Persian traders who had settled along the coast. Interaction over the centuries led to the emergence of a Somali culture bound by common traditions, a single language, and the Islamic faith." In other words, Auspx, Somalians are viewed in much the same way as North Africans; they may not be entirely Arab, but they have been assimilated into the greater Arab nation. --(Mingus ah um 09:38, 19 July 2006 (UTC))

It is a member of Arab League. End of story. ←Humus sapiens ну? 10:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Djibouti and Somalia are members of the Arab league because they have less than 15% Arab minorities. There is a similar situation in the Comoros Islands - by your logic, why shouldn't we include this small island nation in the map too? This is not a map of the Arab league, it is a map of the "Arab-Israeli conflict", which Djibouti, Somalia, and Comoros have never been a part of. No offense, Humus sapiens, but looking at your user boxes I find it hard to believe you can have a neutral POV on this. You have also chimed in on almost everything that ever happens on this page. For this reason, I would humbly suggest that you spend your efforts elsewhere - it will be less frustrating for everyone. Brianski 04:51, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
Please review WP:CIV and WP:NPA. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I think my request was quite civil, and it was not intended as a personal attack. My apologies if you read it as such. Still you have not answered the question of why, if your logic is followed, the Comoros are not included on the map. Brianski 16:59, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I will assume good faith and assure you that no bad faith was involved here: Comoros is not on the map only because of its remoteness. Earlier the map's caption contained the text "Comoros not shown" (incidentally it was I who have added it) and then this phrase was lost when the template was created (maybe also by myself, that I don't remember). Will try to readd it. ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:36, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

There is written "Arab nations" in the conflict box, but it is "Arab League". Can you correct this, in Arab the "umma" is quite a different thing than a league. Wandalstouring 15:47, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

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