Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel/Archive 3

I seem to recall that there was a discussion of MEQ and that it is deemed a reliable source. User:Nableezy has just gone thorough all quotes from MEQ in the article Anti-Israel lobby in the United States and tagged the MEQ as an unreliable source. How do I address this?Historicist (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

the source is an editorial by an AIPAC director in MEQ, not an article. and WP:RS/N is thataway. nableezy - 21:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

MEQ is a peer-reviewed academic journal. It is a reliable source. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 21:04, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Its not my favorite source, but it satisfies all relevant WP:RS requirements. --GHcool (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

This was an editorial that appeared, the authors reliability is what is questioned. nableezy - 21:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sources are publications, not authors. This is a peer-reviewed journal. As you write - WP:RS/N is thataway - take it there, please. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk • contribs) 21:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The unstated major premise in the Nableezy's argument is that nothing written by an AIPAC director can be reliable and that the fact that an AIPAC director wrote an article that was published in a peer reviewed publication shows that the publications has low standards or is unreliable or in the pockets of AIPAC or some such nonsense. I would recommend to the Wikipedia community not to take such an ad hominem seriously and I would recommend to Nableezy make all of his/her premises clear and to refrain from ad hominems and other logical fallacies. Thank you. --GHcool (talk) 21:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Wow, perhaps that was unstated because it does not reflect what I actually think. That entire post was an ad hominem and I recommend you not assume what I am thinking. WP:RS explicitly mentions opinion pieces, which MEQ says this is: "An opinion piece is reliable only as to the opinion of its author, not as a statement of fact," (emphasis in original). nableezy - 21:48, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

It was pointed out to you, several times, that if this is the issue you have - you should feel free to attribute the opinions to the author. But you insist on making this a question of reliable sources - so again, MEQ, a peer-reviewed academic journal, is a reliable source. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 22:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

MEQ claims to have instituted peer review for their Winter 2009 issue, this appeared in August of 1997. So it was not published in a peer reviewed academic journal. nableezy - 22:15, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• The article in contention is a heavily-sourced journal article. User:nableezy is in error in believing that it is an editorial because it carries the disclaimer that "The views expressed here are those of the author alone." The disclaimer is boilerplate used to indicate that the author is writing a scholarly piece and not speaking offocially on behalf of the organization for which he works. Moreover, as I point out on the article talk page, all books and journal articles are only as reliable as their author. Publishers do not use fact-checkers as newspapers do. The Walt and Mearcheimer book, for example, is only as reliable as Walt and Mearshiemer. Historicist (talk) 23:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• My quesiton is : has MEQ been ruled off wikipeida as an unreliable source.Historicist (talk) 23:26, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

It does make a difference if it is an opinion piece, because the conclusions drawn, namely what these organizations said or did makes them part of an "anti-Israel lobby" are his own conclusions. His opinion as such may be relevant in the individual articles, but to present it as fact is not proper. But including them in an article on the "anti-Israel lobby" is asserting that they are indeed such as a fact. That is my problem here, including these organizations in this article based on this person's opinion. nableezy - 23:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

No, MEQ is fine by all WP:RS rules. If it is an opinion piece, feel free to attribute the opinion. Nableezy's arguments based on whether or not MEQ is peer reviewed is absolutely irrelevant. The New York Times isn't peer reviewed, yet they satisfy all WP:RS rules. MEQ has always had decent standards when it comes to publication. As for the fact vs. opinion thing, I see no reason why the AIPAC guy's opinions are less reliable than Mearsheimer and Walt's (in fact, I'd argue that his opinions are probably better informed). --GHcool (talk) 23:31, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, the post I gave above was not an ad hominem. An ad hominem is when one supports a conclusion based on information about a person and not about the logic (for example, "X is unreliable because X is a member of AIPAC," which Nableezy asserts almost as if it were a tautology). Rather than criticizing Nableezy personally and gave that as my reason for not trusting his conclusion, I decided instead to criticize Nableezy's faulty logic and suggest that conclusions made based on such poor logic are not trustworthy. I am fully aware that Nableezy can and will make better arguments in the future, and if he makes a logically sound argument, I would be the first to agree with him, accept it, and take his words seriously. --GHcool (talk) 23:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

The line "The unstated major premise in the Nableezy's argument" is what drew my concern, you assume that I think a certain way and base the rest of your comments of that assumption, or based on what you think of me. nableezy - 23:49, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Without that premise ("AIPAC directors are unreliable") was the crux of your argument. Without that premise, the conclusion that the article in MEQ is not suitable for Wikipedia did not follow. Even with that unstated premise, the argument was not sound. --GHcool (talk) 00:06, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

No, the conclusion was that an editorial in the MEQ is not reliable to state a fact, I do not think it matters whether it is the director of AIPAC or another political action committee. That is something that is specifically said in WP:RS. So please cut the BS and stop trying to make this about me; you do not know me, you do not know how I think, you do not know what I believe. I really would appreciate it if you do not try and question my motives. This is all irrelevant to the discussion, and as there are other venues to have this conversation I plan on no longer contributing to this one. Also, the "peer-reviewed" bit was brought up by LoverOfTheRussianQueen whose entire argument was that this was published in a peer reviewed academic journal, which as it happens is not true. nableezy - 00:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I've been trying to tell you that I'm not criticizing you personally. I am only criticizing your faulty logic. Whether you believe something or not is irrelevant. I was only criticizing your statement, not your private beliefs and not you personally. --GHcool (talk) 00:24, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, I would like to suggest that this argument is not really about the quality of MEQ as a source, but is about the editorial character of the article. Because the article is editorial.

Take, for example, the lead: "Anti-Israel lobby is a term used to describe the coalition of organizations and individuals who work to influence United States foreign policy in ways inimical to the welfare and continued existence of the state of Israel." It is true that "Anti-Israeli lobby" is a term used to describe a group of organizations, and probably the members of that group would not object too strenuously to being called that. But to say they are "inimical to the welfare and continued existence of the state of Israel"? Isn't that being a little extreme? Many people think that "encouraging a balanced U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East" and "leading Arab-American voice on foreign policy issues, especially by defending the rights of the Palestinian people" - stated positions from the ADC's website - is not inimical to the continued existence of Israel. Nor is protesting military actions by Israel as a violation of human rights anti-Israeli any more than protesting human rights violations in Darfur is being anti-Sudani. There are plenty of Israeli groups that consider actions by Israel in the recent Gaza war as war crimes. Are those groups anti-Israeli? Are they inimical to the continued existence of the state of Israel?

There is an anti-Israeli lobby and it is deserving of an article in Wikipedia. When the MEQ puts forth an opinion about the nature of this lobby, it deserves to be quoted. But it should be quoted directly, and we should make it clear that the opinion is just that. And the positions of the different lobbying groups should also be directly quoted, and actions they have taken - such as publishing an op-ed column in the Boston Globe on Israeli settlements - attributed directly to the websites and publications of those organizations, and not quoted in generalizations from a third party. --Ravpapa (talk) 14:00, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

• The article in contention is a heavily-sourced journal article. User:nableezy is in error in believing that it is an editorial because it carries the disclaimer that "The views expressed here are those of the author alone." The disclaimer is boilerplate used to indicate that the author is writing a scholarly piece and not speaking offocially on behalf of the organization for which he works. Moreover, as I point out on the article talk page, all books and journal articles are only as reliable as their author. Publishers do not use fact-checkers as newspapers do. The Walt and Mearcheimer book, for example, is only as reliable as Walt and Mearshiemer.Historicist (talk) 16:55, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The author is not a scholar. This is an opinion piece on a group of organizations put forth by a someone who sees them as political adversaries. Is Michael Steele a RS on the aims and motivations of the Democratic Party? That is what you are presenting this as. nableezy - 17:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

And if it helps you, forget the word "editorial". WP:RS specifically mentions "opinion pieces" which MEQ itself put this forward as: "An opinion piece is reliable only as to the opinion of its author, not as a statement of fact," (emphasis in original). nableezy - 17:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

The issue here is not how many sources the journal cites, but whether wuoted statements in the article are facts or opinions. For example, Lewis's statement, "injuring the Jewish state, not aiding Arabs, defines the core agenda of most of these individuals and groups" - is at best a conclusion, at worst an opinion. You certainly couldn't call it a fact.

There are facts in the article, but there are also opinions. It is our job as wikipedia editors to distinguish between the two; and to identify opinions (not to ignore them) as such when we cite them. --Ravpapa (talk) 17:47, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Nableezy. Let's apply the stipulation on opinion pieces in WP:RS to all sources including Mearsheimer and Walt's book. --GHcool (talk) 18:01, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen me arguing against enforcing WP:RS? You seem to want to take opposing sides on that question depending on whose opinion is being cited. I ask you two simple questions; is this an opinion piece and should WP:RS be enforced? nableezy - 18:38, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes and Yes. --GHcool (talk) 21:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

So what are we arguing about? If your answers to both those are yes then you agree that this piece cannot be used to support a statement of fact, only the authors opinion. Am I correct? nableezy - 22:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Middle East Quarterly might not be a reliable source and only become peer reviewed in 2009 winter. "One of its goals was also to provide a voice to academics who felt that the mainstream academic press was not giving voice to their views on Islam. Until recently, it did no peer review at all, leaving nearly all publishing decisions with its editors. ^[6]" Before there was no criticism in mentioned articles, that is why you are mistaken. Now criticism is added for founder and editor Daniel Pipes, publisher Middle East Forum, Campus Watch and 1 other editor Martin Kramer in the article, by Professor Joel Beinin, Middle East History at Stanford University and President of the Middle East Studies Association(MESA) of North America and journalist Robert Fisk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Quarterly#Criticism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_Forum#Criticism It still requires some paraphrasing. I came for adding a discussion and I didn't read your whole discussion yet. You may help discussions. Kasaalan (talk) 10:11, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Notice that of all the ethnic lobbies in the United States, only Israel is listed. Israel needs to be replaced in this template by Diaspora politics in the United States to put the pro-Israel lobby in its proper context in the category of the many other diaspora lobbies that currently and formerly influence American policy. Ther whould probably be an article on the powerful Anglo-America lobby that got us into World War I. Problem is, I can't figure out how to make this edit.Historicist (talk) 12:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the pro-Israel lobby is necessarily an example of diaspora politics. Although many Israeli immigrants to the US could be described as part of the pro-Israel lobby, the large majority of the lobby consists of American-born citizens concerned about the well-being of the Jewish state. Take Mitchell Bard, for example. He is an American Jew (i.e. he is a member of the Jewish diaspora) and part of what has been described as the "pro-Israel lobby," but he is not an Israeli ex-patriot. Remember, it is not promoting Judaism that the pro-Israel lobby is interested in. Rather, it is promoting tolerance and aid toward Israel.

However, I think other lobbies relating to foreign interests should be listed in the template. I would support inclusion of the Cuban-American lobby, the Armenian American lobby, the Arab lobby in the United States, and others on this list into the template. --GHcool (talk) 17:36, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Y Done. --GHcool (talk) 18:12, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

There is an effort to censor the fact (verified by JPost) that Iraqi Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein. Please keep an eye on this. --GHcool (talk) 22:24, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Many Palestinians fought on behalf of Saddam. Wikifan12345 (talk) 01:19, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

An editor suggested British media positions on Israel in an article I was browsing. Does anyone think a topic like that is workable within the realm of NPOV? Wikifan12345 (talk) 01:23, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Such an article would probably be merged into Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict or perhaps BBC#Israel. --GHcool (talk) 06:38, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd be delighted to read a quality article on the subject, but it would be AfD'd within hours. Probably not a good idea to spend many hours researching this. If you have spare time, I have to do lists with over 100 to do Israel-related articles in between :) —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:20, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Might be good or British media positions on Israel-Palestine conflict might be better. Kasaalan (talk) 11:58, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

In theory, it would be workable. In practice, I suspect it would become a mirror for someone's favorite opinion pieces, then turn into a battleground, and end up, as Ynhockey said, on AFD. -- Nudve (talk) 18:29, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Template:Neoconservatives and thinktanks has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. GHcool (talk) 17:36, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• I have requested that the page name Israel lobby in the United States be moved to NPOV Pro-Israel lobby in the United StatesHistoricist (talk) 21:11, 15 July 2009 (UTC)Historicist (talk) 20:08, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Someone was deleting one half of the balance between Arab entities that use the term "Israel" and those that do not in the Zionist entity article. Extra eyes for neutrality purposes would be appreciated. -- Avi (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

The first Hamas movie. A feature film. Separate seating. Wear burkas to screening. Biopic of a murderous hero. Article eeds someone with time to expand, then nominate for DKY.Historicist (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Who cares?! There is a lot of work to be done on Israel pages. Let the WikiProject Hamas take care of it, I don't even think WPPalestine will bother. --Shuki (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Although the WikiProject Hamas remark was unnecessary, on the whole I completely agree with Shuki. This article is not within the scope of our WikiProject, and I feel we have recently strayed too much from its real scope with a bunch of irrelevant articles. I'd also be curious to see this movie, but there are many more important things to do on Wikipedia. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:37, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, when I referred to WP Hamas, I was not alluding to the Palestinian wikiproj but to supporters of those who promote killing Jews for the sake of killing Jews. --Shuki (talk) 22:05, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

According to Hamas, the Jews are responsible for all the ills of modern society - the French Revolution; the Communist revolution; the establishment of secret associations (Freemasons, Rotary and Lions clubs, B'nai B'rith) designed to help them gain control of the world by secret means. They control the economy, press and television; they are responsible for the outbreak of World War I, which they initiated in order to destroy the Muslim caliphates (the Ottoman empire), to get the Balfour Declaration and set up the League of Nations with the aim of establishing their state. They also initiated World War II in order to make a fortune from selling war materials; they use both capitalism and communism as their agents. --Sceptic from Ashdod 18:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Sceptic, Hamas is not within the scope of the WikiProject. If you want to post materials, please post ones that are relevant to the project, although this is probably not the place to do so anyway. Thanks, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 18:48, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Battle_of_Haifa_(1948)#Requested_move. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This mill is also known as the Jaffa Gate Mill. There is a dispute over whether the alternative name should be included in the lead and infobox. Input welcome at the talk page. Mjroots (talk) 10:54, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone check these two articles and make sure the death tolls are correct? I came across an editor Special:Contributions/124.121.217.112 who amongst other things, added (including perpertrators) to the death tolls of infoboxes of a bunch of articles on suicide bombings. Sadly whoever this is appears to have ignored the sources, because I came across 2 or 3 instances where the death toll was incorrect, e.g. the death toll excluded perpertrators. I've gone thorough all their contribs and the others have appear to be fine so it's just these ones Afula Bus suicide bombing Beit Lid massacre Nil Einne (talk) 00:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Would someone please photograph the headquarters of El Al for its Wikipedia article, if possible? I have been trying to get images of airline headquarters from around the world in their respective articles. Thank you WhisperToMe (talk) 21:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

There is an RFC going on now about whether or not Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. --GHcool (talk) 22:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

There is also an effort to insert information into the Jerusalem article cited to a non-notable Joe Shmoe who wrote an article on the Huffington Post blog. --GHcool (talk) 23:54, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

An editor wishes to WP:CENSOR verified material because she believes it might be fabricated or some such thing. Those wishing to enter the discussion are encouraged to here. --GHcool (talk) 20:00, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The opening paragraph of the article on the former Arab village of Kafr Saba contains the comment "The village was depopulated in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and the shrine has now, as part of the "a wholesale appropriation of the sacred sites of a defeated religious community by members of the victorious one [not witnessed by the civilised world] since the the end of the Middle Ages", been taken over by the new Jewish population." I deleted the words shown in bold, as totally lacking in objectivity. However the offending words have now been reinstated, with the addition of the words "according to Meron Benvenisti". I believe that such clearly biased statement have no place in Wikipedia. What can be done and what actions taken? Davshul (talk) 21:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The wording, almost identical, has now moved from the introduction to the 1948 War section of the article. I am also not convinced that the words are correctly reproduced from Benvenisti or were not partly taken out of context, as I could not find the quote on the cited page of Benvenisti's works. Davshul (talk) 22:43, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

The reason you could not find the quote is that it was manipulated by the editor who added it, who moved the words around. But a statement saying pretty much the same thing does appear in Benvenisti. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 00:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Lover, do you have the exact quote by Benvinisti? --Ravpapa (talk) 06:28, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The quote, on p. 273, is "not since the the end of the Middle Ages had the civilized world witnessed the wholesale appropriation of the sacred sites of a defeated religious community by members of the victorious one". Note that it does not refer specifically to the Kafr Saba shrine. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Ravpapa rewrote the section in question, and offered up a compromise that was acceptable to several editors, but not to all. Additional viewpoints would be appreciated on the Talk page of the article. LoverOfTheRussianQueen (talk) 03:15, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please specify the subcat more relevant to this article rather than 'Israel'? I don't seem to understand who/what/where this should go. Thanks. --Shuki (talk) 12:31, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Based on The Academy of the Hebrew Language, I've put it in Category:Organizations based in Israel. I don't know whether a Category:Quangos based in Israel should be created for bodies such as this one (i.e. established by the government, but not actually part of a ministry). пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:27, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I've just created Category:Civic organizations in Israel (as Category:Civic and political organizations of Israel seems redundant as there is already a populated Category:Political organizations based in Israel), which is probably the best solution. пﮟოьεԻ 57 13:28, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a discussion on the talk page about where the name Kach, its status as an acronym, and where it came from - if anyone can help, please do. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Not surprisingly, the issue is up for discussion again, at Talk:Modi'in Illit#Request for Comment. The dispute is whether to include boilerplate text about the legality of settlements in each individual settlement's article. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bogus_Moshe_Ya'alon_quotation

• I wrote an article along the lines of the articles on other incidents of flase quotations and media manipulation such as  :Adnan Hajj photographs controversy, Pallywood, A land without a people for a people without a land, Tuvia Grossman and others. There is a proposal to merge it into the Moshe Ya'alon article.Historicist (talk) 15:23, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Is official Iranian media outlet Press TV a reliable source on matters pertaining to Israel and Israelis? Feel free to comment here. --GHcool (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Please see Talk:List_of_Arab_towns_and_villages_depopulated_during_the_1948_Arab–Israeli_War#Requested_move_2. Many thanks, SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:20, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've subscribed the WikiProject for Article Alerts. If everything works as it should, the alerts will be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel/Article alerts, and they should be updated daily.

For more information about Article Alerts, see Wikipedia:Article alerts. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 00:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

A reminder that it is a good idea to give a link from the project's main page. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 23:28, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I need help with copyedit. Could somebody, please...? Flayer (talk) 09:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

First of all, since you seem to be the main editor of this article, kudos on a job well done. I am not knowledgeable enough on the subject. What exactly do you think is needed? -- Nudve (talk) 18:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! I think grammar check is needed. It isn't my strong skill. Flayer (talk) 21:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Are the article assessment statistics ever updated? I have been doing quite a bit of work on article assessment lately but never seen any change in the figures.--Gilabrand (talk) 19:20, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

They're updated occasionally. You can update manually by running the bot (type in: Israel-related), but doing this too often is not recommended as it pointlessly loads the server. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Cheers for the assessment work! One concern though: I noticed you have been rating some clear-cut stubs as start-class articles. In general, articles less than 1 KB should not be rated start-class (or higher) no matter their sourcing quality or whatnot. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:58, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but I think we disagree on what a stub is. In my view, an article that has 2-3 references & a photo is not a stub. Bissli, for example, is more than a stub. It is an article that describes the subject sufficiently for a person to know what it's about, provides a visual picture, and supplies reliable sources for that information.--Gilabrand (talk) 12:48, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If you look at the Wikipedia article on stubs, you will see it states that the length of an article is never the sole determining factor. --Gilabrand (talk) 13:09, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of that. However, the Bissli article is about 500 KB Bytes of text, which cannot serious be considered anything but a stub. A borderline case is about 1–1.5 KB (can be both stub and not, determined by other factors), not 500 KB Bytes. Again, there is no set rule for this, but it has been the standard on Wikipedia for a long time. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 22:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

On the other hand, the idea of a stub is that is something that should be expanded into a more meaningful article. 500 words is already too much for Bissli. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, my apologies for writing KB instead of bytes, as it should be. 500 bytes is not 500 words. The length of Bissli specifically is less than 100 words. There is actually quite a bit more that can be written about Bissli too, like a necessary expansion of the history beyond "came out in 1970", information about marketing (the current mascots are very well-known and have even been parodied in notable comedy shows IIRC), etc. Just for the record, I am not complaining about Gilabrand's work on the article, which is positive and much appreciated. It's just that more needs to be written before this article stops being a clear-cut stub. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 07:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Hi WP:Israel! Remember WP:HE? A debate is igniting on its talk page whether we should be using weird esoteric transliteration standards that no one has ever heard of except a select few linguists worldwide, on articles related to the Hebrew language. I'm not sure how many here were editing when Gilgamesh changed all the Israeli city names to this standard a few years ago, and for those who have, I don't need to clarify how much damage that did. I invite Hebrew-speaking members of the WikiProject to participate in the discussion. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:44, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

There are now two, well-designed studies published in peer-reviewed journals demonstrating the link between Antisemitism and anti-Israel activism. I have added the material to the article on New antisemitism but my attempt to add it as a sentence to the more important (as in ~2k hits per day) article on Antisemitism has been reverted, bu a lone editor. I think that the findings of theses studies merit a sentence in the New antisemitsm section of Antisemitism. I would appreciate a second opinion.Historicist (talk) 22:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the other editor's edit summary. The sentence you're trying to add is WEASELy and "woolly". Also, demonstrating that "no connection ... [is] wrong" is a far cry from establishing a connection, which would be a much more significant finding. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:24, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you read the articles? Do you read psychology? I ask because you seem unaware that the articles established a strong connection. Indeed you wrote that the authors "argue." No article that makes an argument would get past the editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. What the authors did was to test a hypothesis and discover a link. Actually, they cleverly constructed four different tests. It is a very well-constructed piece of research. You make it sound like an opinion piece. I do not think that it is responsible to write about articles that you have not read.Historicist (talk) 02:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

First, I've never used the word "argue", I wrote "demonstrat[e]". Second, I think you're reading more into what I wrote than I intended. If you think the authors found a strong connection, then say that. If you mean to say that the authors found a close correlation between anti-Israel and antisemitic viewpoints, don't write a tortured sentence about "demonstrat[ing] that 'those claiming that there is no connection between anti-Semitism and hostility toward Israel are wrong.'" But I suspect they didn't find a close correlation, which is why you used such an odd circumlocution. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 02:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the info belongs in New Antisemitism and need not be in regular Antisemitism. --GHcool (talk) 22:53, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

The revelations about the Israel/Middle East dept. of HRW continue. In additon to the HRW article, and the Criticism of Human rights Watch, there are articles about the individual staff involved. The Marc Garlasco article bears watching, Sarah Leah Whitson needs work Joe Stork needs a lot of work, and Lucy Mair probably merits an article.Historicist (talk) 19:28, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

• False Moshe Ya'alon quotation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:False_Moshe_Ya%27alon_quotation

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Historicist (talk • contribs) 00:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

There is/was an edit war at the Yehuda Amichai article that led to it getting locked; the issue is whether a biography by Nili Scharf Gold, that some other scholars consider unreliable, should be cited. Additional opinions would be welcome, at the article's talk page. Korny O'Near (talk) 15:58, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

The blanket reversion of sourced information in this page continues, after an administrator locked the page instead of addressing the problem. Is there anyone who wants to get involved? I am getting tired of being the guardian. Some "editor" with a personal grudge against Nili Scharf Gold is on the rampage, leaving bizarre comments and cooking up wacko conspiracy theories.--Gilabrand (talk) 10:13, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Having seen this diagram on the Hebrew wiki, I decided to make my own version of it - I have done two versions, one including the communist parties and one without. If anyone has any comments or corrections, please let me know. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ 57 12:46, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Good work! A couple things:

1. The diagram should be chronologically sorted (IMO), so 1965 (Rafi) can't be above 1948 (Mapam), etc.
2. The bottom-right lines make it look like Meretz transformed into Shinui, which is misleading and not exactly like they did it on HeWiki. Basically you would have something like:

Meretz (1992)
   |
   |_______________
   |                          |
   V                        V
Meretz (1997) Shinui (1997)

Or something. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:29, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Also, the communist parties table doesn't include newer parties like Hadash. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 13:30, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The National Liberation League basically reunited with MAKI in 1948--it's complex, but it would probably be better to show it merging with MAKI rather than being a dead end.Prezbo (talk) 21:23, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Also it's not really clear from the current version that MAKI split in 1965, it looks like it just changed its name. Thanks for doing this though.Prezbo (talk) 21:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew Communists needs to be added to the chart. --Soman (talk) 22:15, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I've done a new version of the one excluding the communist parties. Thoughts? пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Much better! There are a few small modern parties missing though (not sure if they'd be important enough for the chart), notably Meimad and Hetz. I'm sure that many smaller parties from earlier years were also missed, but my political history knowledge isn't that vast. Cheers for the job well done! —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it is a mistake to exclude the communist parties. There were, after all, a number of notable splits and mergers between the "mainstream" left and the communists. Also, the graph should probably be in SVG format. Otherwise, looks good. Rami R 06:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to include them and the smaller parties mentioned above, but it's really a question of size - the diagram is almost too large already to include in an article. Also, I don't have the programmes necessary to turn something into an SVG! пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:30, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I do and have uploaded SVG files for both. Not sure if I should have uploaded over the current file. If not revert it and will upload to commons, if that is fine could an admin please move File:Israeli Left II.PNG to File:Israeli Left II.SVG and File:Israeli Left.PNG to File:Israeli Left.SVG? nableezy - 02:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That kind of defeats the whole point of SVG though... since the text isn't in SVG as far as I can tell. I am waiting for the final version from Number 57, then it won't be a problem to remake this in SVG. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

aight then, revert it. nableezy - 18:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I'm happy with the non-Communist version if you want to SVG it - it would be nice to include Hetz, Meimad etc, but there just isn't enough room unfortunately (and they are all quite minor in comparison to the size (at some point) of Mapai, Rafi, Ahdut HaAvoda, Mapam, Meretz and Shinui. пﮟოьεԻ 57 21:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

here is my attempt at an SVG version. I still can't figure out what problem this thing has with the Arial font... I tried two methods to fix this, and it didn't work. If you have any ideas, please let me know, although I believe the current version is also possible to work with (but the PNG is better for now). —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:19, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Cheers for that. Is it possible to make parts of an image into a link (I think I've seen this done elsewhere, but not sure if it was something like the links on certain maps)? пﮟოьεԻ 57 20:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

AFAIK, in cases like this it's only possible by putting the links on top of the image in a template (see Template:West Bank). If you make links in the actual SVGs, it won't thumbnail links. Anyway, I'm not up to the task at the moment, but you have an example of how to make this :) maybe I'll do it later. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

On September 18, a new category, "Israeli fascists", was created by “Scottish Wikipedian” User:MacRusgail and two individuals were placed in this category, the Israel Prize laureate, Uri Zvi Grinberg, and Abba Ahimeir, a co-founder in the 1930's of the Revisionist Maximalism faction. In addition, these two individuals were, respectively, added to the categories, “Austrian fascists’ and “Russian fascists”, sharing such categories with certain odious characters. I query whether either of these two individuals can be considered as fascists (let alone Austrian or Russian fascists, which terms has somewhat more specific connotations), having regard to the current understanding of the term and its clearly pejorative nature and, indeed, I question whether the category itself should not be deleted. As I do not consider my self to be an expert on these two individuals, I have not, for the time being, taken any action as I would prefer those users more acquainted with this aspect of the history of the Palestine Mandate to initiate the appropriate action. Davshul (talk) 08:07, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

The categories should be deleted, if they haven't been already. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 00:12, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The category: "Israeli Fascists" was deleted, but has been recreated by its original creater (and the two individuals mentioned above placed in it). The issue is now under discussion in Categories for discussion - Israeli Fascists, having been moved there from an initial discussion on speedy renaming. Davshul (talk) 08:15, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

This matter is still under discussion, and comments on the Cfd page would be welcome. Davshul (talk) 08:17, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Current: Talk:Yom Yerushalayim. Editor is reopening old move discussions to move this page to Jerusalem Day. In the past, the original Hebrew Israeli civic holiday names have been attacked and attempted to be anglicized and Yom Hashoah, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha'atmaut are all an inherently related package on this argument. --Shuki (talk) 09:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, the page has been moved to Jerusalem Day for some odd reason, even though numerous move requests have already been turned down. Yossiea ^(talk) 13:35, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I commented on the admin's talk, as well as on the talk page. The only word I can think of is 'absurd'. This admin has justified going against the 'majority' by telling us what the common name of this day is, as if he knows better than us. Given his admin 'justification', what will prevent other admin with POV to 'translate other pages? --Shuki (talk) 23:03, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

If you read the closing text, he justified it by the actually taking into account the evidence given proving that Jerusalem Day is the common English name. пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Wow, the guy who repeatedly suggested to move the page is happy the page was moved. I agree that this move is absurd. The activists who try to dilute everything Jewish and/or Israeli on Wikipedia can mark another notch on their belts. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.120.153.187 (talk) 20:49, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the closing admin was so 'justified' in his explanation, he had to re-explain himself. We only have his POV that decided for the Israeli, Jewish, and other related editors that the common name is something that is not common at all, and at least a wrong usage. His justification was that the oppose editors (who were the majority) were just annoying 'me too' votes.--Shuki (talk) 20:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Consensus is not a vote, in fact WP:CONSENSUS specifically says Wikipedia does not base its decisions on the number of people who show up and vote; we work on a system of good reasons. And this is not a Wikipedia just for Israeli, Jewish, and other related editors, it is a Wikipedia for all English readers, so if the most common name in English is "Jerusalem Day" the name of the Wikipedia article will be "Jerusalem Day". Reasons and evidence were provided that this is the case, nothing was offered to rebut that evidence besides users jumping up and down saying "NO NO NO". WP:CONSENSUS also says that Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy does not apply to articles within its scope, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right. Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Use common names is part of site-wide consensus. That said, I am more than a bit shocked that an admin did what they were supposed to do and not just count votes. nableezy - 20:56, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, whatever. The best of you couldn't abstain from adding your two cents here, and given especially after what 24.120.153.187 above said.

Googlehits, several examples in the world, and secular Israeli newspapers supported your suggestion over [apparently] uneloquent Israeli / Jewish supporting people who identify with the holiday or otherwise people know something about it. The Bastille Day is certainly not the rule, just one example bordering on WP:OTHERSTUFF. There are many more 'ethnic named' days on WP that 'English' editors respect and don't push their POV under guise of 'commoname'. Apparently, I did not take this discussion as serious as I should have. I was so sure that your past actions and reputation as related by 24.120.153.187 above would be evident on top of the fact that this is clearly a case of the ignorant world telling a country how to name its holiday. I was so sure that common sense would win that I specifically did not apply your tried and true tactic to WP:GAME discussions by badgering opposing editor's comments and reply to you further into the discussion/vote. Move/delete 'vote discussions' are usually characterized by single comments and few people ever come back to reply since it is not on their watchlist. And FWIW, the exact policy you just quoted from 'CONSENSUS' is why the outcome should have been opposite. There was no limited group of editors, there had been several past discussions with outcomes opposing name changes so that one place and time is not true here, and there is definite community consensus to keep the Israeli/Jewish names as seen with all other Jewish and Israeli holidays except Passover and now Jerusalem Day. --Shuki (talk) 22:27, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Apparently not. Community wide consensus trumps what a group of editors tries to force on a set of pages, and there was no "badgering", there were requests to actually back up assertions that were shown to be false and yet repeated continuously. Policy trumps what a few editors want to do and policy was correctly applied in this case. If you or anybody else had made any effort at all to show that I was wrong the decision would have been different. But you instead relied on a call to arms against an "attack" on "Israeli civic holiday names" and what you got from that was a few people lining up giving the same bogus argument without a single shred of evidence. Consensus is not a vote, and no matter how many people you get to say "me too" reasoned application of policy will trump assertions without any factual backing. nableezy - 22:39, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. We have a lot of terms from the Arabic as well. "Intifada" instead of "uprising" "Al-Nabka" "Al-Quds" the various Muslim holy days etc. What's the big deal that vernacular more specific to Israel can't be permitted on Wikipedia? Stellarkid (talk) 15:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no such deal. "Intifada" was used in English as the name of the uprisings, "Nakba" is not in a title of an article, the only reference to "Quds" in a title that I have seen is Quds Day which is used in English as the name of the event. Page names are dependedent on the most common English name, and in this instance it is "Jerusalem Day". For other events, such as Eid ul-Fitr or Yom Kippur the most common name used in English are "Eid ul-Fitr" and "Yom Kippur" respectively. So those are the titles of the articles. nableezy - 15:11, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I know I'm just an ignorant American but I have almost never seen and certainly never used the expression Eid ul-Fitr. Of course we do have Ramadan and then there is the Hajj and we have expression like the Ummah and Dar al-Islam that demonstrate to me that WP has room to express many (both) cultures. Stellarkid (talk) 15:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The culture is not the issue, it is what name is used in English for an event. For "Eid ul-Fitr" take a look at what BBC, The Guardian, NYTimes, Reuters, Chicago Tribune and any number of other sources use. I showed on the talk page of the article that major English sources, including Israeli sources that publish English version such as Yedioth Ahronoth and Haaretz use "Jerusalem Day" as the name of the event. English sources use "Eid ul-Fitr" (sometime "Eid al-Fitr") as the name of that event just as English sources use "Yom Kippur" as the name of that event. But the common name used in English is what the title of the article is, and in this instance it is "Jerusalem Day". Besides sophistry, is there an argument that shows that this is not the case? nableezy - 15:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Generalising somewhat, it is common for the names of holy days to remain in the original language, but for secular public holidays to be translated. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Nableezy, you just said that the issue "is what name is used in English for an event." And yet we have just spent the last week and a half trying to express just that in the Gaza War article with you where you have been insisting on calling it "The Gaza Massacre" in the lede despite the fact that it is generally not called that in English RS. You had to go to the Arabic and translate it yourself to come up with evidence to maintain a massacre in the lede. This despite the fact that most everyone was quite willing to include the massacre concept in the body of the article and to acknowledge that it was widely described that way in the Arabic press. Now here you are insisting on calling something by its English name. I guess it all depends on your POV. Yours seems quite consistent. No one is accusing you of antisemitism but your antiIsraelism is clear enough. It is probably understandable considering what I think I read was your background but it is not neutral nonetheless. Stellarkid (talk) 20:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I dont know if you are purposely being obtuse but let me break this down for you. The name of the article is determined by the most common English name of what the article is covering. "Gaza massacre" (and I never capitalized the m) was never presented as a common English name and nobody suggested that the name of the article be "Gaza massacre". The name of the article was the issue with "Jerusalem Day" and nobody even suggested that "Yom Yerushalayim" not be included in the lead as the name in Hebrew. And I completely reject the label "anti-Israel" and I consider it a personal attack. Kindly refrain from spouting such inanity in the future. nableezy - 20:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Coming off a grand victory of the Yom Yerushalyim move, Nableezy now takes on Jewish villages as well. His rationale is that 'Israeli settlement' is the most common description given the ghits around the internet. While no one is denying the use of that term, it is OR and POV to emphasize that vague general label over the actual type of locality - its essence - a place where people live, study, and work. Emphasizing that all these houses, outposts, neighbourhoods, villages, towns, and cities are primarily 'Israeli settlements' and deprecating a more accurate description of the subject of the articles is POV. It assumes that they are all the same 'questionable' efforts when in fact, each one is a completely different story by itself. Using a vague descriptive label over a term to describe the residential type is dehumanizing of the subject. This is not an accusation of anti-Semitism (as Nableezy assumes), and given AGF, I say that it is rather a POV attempt to degrade all these localities to the same general less meaningful status. Since Nableezy's edits are characterized with a record of edit warring and tiring out other editors on articles he targets, I plan on opening a WP:DR early next week (unless someone wants to attempt to do it first) to get a WP community for consensus. I've reverted most of his changes and hope that Nableezy will stay calm and show some maturity by taking part in peaceful dispute resolution. --Shuki (talk) 10:29, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

TBH, he has a point - they are primarily (and almost exclusively) known as Israeli settlements - I'd imagine only Israeli right-wingers would describe one as a "Jewish village" or something similar. пﮟოьεԻ 57 10:57, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Number57, I'm sure you know that this is A) an encyclopedia and B) an NPOV encyclopedia. If I show you a myriad of geographical localilty articles around the world, the first term I would expect anyone to describe the subject of the article is as a 'city' or a 'village' or a 'district'. But when it comes to Israeli settlements, for some reason, this is an exception to the rest of WP. I can show you a couple of hundred articles about Jewish residences in the disputed land, and you are claiming that we should merely say: Jewish house in Ras el Amud: 'Israeli settlement' and house; Jewish city in Samarian Mountains: 'Israeli settlement' and city. (Though the effort is to even reduce this as well) Again, the vague settlement term is not denied, but it poorly reduces the type to the vague label, and reduces the accuracy of the geographical article. Is that quality? When colonies will be set up on the moon in several years, will there lead be; Tranquility is a moon settlement and village, or the better format - Tranquility is a village on the moon. Moon settlements are ... etc...? --Shuki (talk) 11:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but places like Elon Moreh are primarily known for being Israeli settlements rather than a village, moshav, town or whatever. Other geographical localilty articles around the world do not have this issue because Israeli settlements are almost unique by their virtue of being illegally constructed on occupied territory (I suppose the only equivalent would be Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara, but I'm not sure how far recognition of Morocco's occupation goes). And yes, I would expect to see Tranquility is a moon colony, not Tranquility is a village on the moon, as a moon colony has far more meaning! пﮟოьεԻ 57 11:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

What crazy logic! Jewish and Israeli villages are not unique for being villages with people, schools, and houses of worship, but instead are almost unique for being illegally constructed on occupied territory. No POV there surely! Stellarkid (talk) 15:13, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The POV expressed is the POV of the vast majority of the world. These places are, almost without exception, called "Israeli settlements" before any other description. You think there is "no POV" in calling these places "villages" before the most common description? This is not about "Jewish and Israeli villages", this is about localities built in occupied Arab lands. The words used to describe such localities is "Israeli settlement". nableezy - 15:16, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I do recommend checking your dictionary for the definitions of villages, towns, cities and neighborhoods. These are neutral terns which contain considerably more information for readers than the expression "settlement", which besides being vague and overly general in its meaning has political overtones in the region. The (political) implication is that Jews have "settlements" and Palestinians have "villages." While of course the political can & probably should always be mentioned, these are still Jewish villages and towns outside of the political context. It would be nice to get the politics out and the people in. This dehumanization of the Jewish community in and around Israel is really very troubling. Stellarkid (talk) 15:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

No they do not provide "considerably more information for readers" and I am not using the generic term "settlement", I am using the specific term Israeli settlement which has a specific meaning. That meaning is Israeli locality built in occupied territory. There is no logical explanation of how "village" gives more information to the reader, and nobody is removing the word "village", just placing it after the most common description ("Israeli settlement"). These places are called "Israeli settlements" by nearly all reliable sources before any other description and usually without any other description. And "Jews have villages", but the "villages" (more accurately known as "colonies") that Israel has built in the occupied territories are called "Israeli settlements". This is not about "Jews" or any other association, this is about where these places were built. And the "implication" is that colonies that the occupying power builds in occupied territory have a name, and in the lands occupied by Israel that name is "Israeli settlement". And there is no "dehumanization", there is accuracy. I caught a speech by Robert Fisk in which this very issue came up. It discusses the way that certain extreme right-wing Israelis and their American supporters attempt to change the language used to convey certain meanings. He had a line that was close to this: Colonies become settlements and now there is an attempt to change settlements into "neighborhoods" or "villages". And I dont care what troubles you, but if we are sharing our feelings Ill let mine out. A number of users are adamant that NPOV means that whatever Israel says goes. That even though the world agrees that the West Bank (including E. Jerusalem), Gaza and the Golan remain occupied by Israel that because Israel "disputes" this it is non-NPOV to say the lands are occupied by Israel. They demand that we instead use the language of a fringe-sized minority and say "the disputed lands of Judea and Samaria" instead of "the occupied territory of the West Bank". That is what is in violation of NPOV. NPOV does not mean that we treat fringe views on the same level as what is agreed by nearly the entire world. It does not mean that words a certain set of people do not like should not be used. NPOV, specifically WP:WEIGHT in fact says the exact opposite of this. What is troubling is the number of users who try to distort policies into saying that if their POV is not the one presented then NPOV is violated. That is what is troubling. I will also add, as you seem to have trouble understanding the point, that this has nothing to do with "Jews in Israel", I would not say that a village in Israel is an "Israeli settlement". The localities that Israel has built in occupied lands outside of Israel are however "Israeli settlements". And this is the last time somebody implicitly accuses me of racism before this gets taken to WP:AE. nableezy - 16:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, playing the anti-semitism card is a really poor way to conduct an argument. пﮟოьεԻ 57 19:53, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Whatever the verdict on settlements, Nableezy is wrong to have made those edits. When you know an edit is going to be as controversial as this (and Nableezy should know this better than anyone, after the major ArbCom case where 8 users were banned as a result of a very similar dispute), you don't go on a willy-nilly and made a bunch of similar edits where consensus has not been reached. Other than that, I agree with Stellarkid, but firstly request that Nableezy ceases to make further edits like he did, before discussing them in depth with other editors and gaining clear consensus. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:30, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

BS. Most of those articles had been changed from having "Israeli settlements" first to having "town" or "city" or "village" first. Is that not controversial? Is that not going "on a willy-nilly" and making "a bunch of similar edits where consensus has not been reached"? Yn, if you expect people to show you respect it would be wise to actually look at the circumstances and not just provide automatic backup consistently to those who express a certain POV, especially as those users are freely implying that I am a racist (and apparently agreeing with them). But BS on how I should not be doing these edits. Shuki should not have put village first, especially after having the same argument at Moddin Illit with most users agreeing that "Israeli settlement" is the most common description and should be first. nableezy - 23:01, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate a policy-based argument instead of personal attacks. Thanks, Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

As would I. Mine is that the most common description of these places is Israeli settlement and using the language of the occupying power in place of what is most common throughout the world is in violation of WP:NPOV. Would you like to try or would you rather say "me too" along with people calling me a racist without any rational reason? And perhaps you would like to give a policy-based argument as to why my edits should not have been done but Shuki adding "village" before "Israeli settlement" is just fine. nableezy - 23:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It only adds to the confusion when you reply to my concern of behavioral issues with your rationale for the content changes. Please focus on just one topic.

The reason why your edits were inappropriate is simple, and it's not helpful that you're trying to divert attention from that by saying that "Shuki was also wrong". Perhaps he was, I made no comment about Shuki's edits, but about yours.

I am fully aware of how this unfolded, having most of the articles on my watchlist; Shuki made some changes to a number of articles about settlements in late August. For over a month, these edits were uncontested and no one raised an objection, and I refuse to believe that nobody noticed them since they were made to about a dozen (or more) articles. So, while the appropriateness of those edits can be disputed, what cannot be disputed is that for over a month no one cared. Then suddenly you followed Shuki to each of these articles (as far as I can tell) and reverted him without discussion. Now, ignoring for a second that the revert was in itself inappropriate (mass reverts should simply not be made except to clear vandalism, without prior discussion), you did not attempt to start a discussion even after the revert, and instead Shuki started one in the appropriate location.

All of the above demonstrates a very clear behavioral gap, and this is why I singled you out in criticism. This is irrelevant to the actual content dispute, which should be settled separately. Therefore I again request both editors to stop edit-warring over these articles (might not have been clear from my above post), and present concise arguments on why their positions are correct. Personally I have already presented my position in the past, and will do so again in the framework of the content-based discussion.

—Ynhockey ^(Talk) 02:34, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Again BS. I did not follow Shuki, and for you to say that I did is hopefully an unintended falsehood and not an outright lie. I can tell you exactly how I got to these pages, I was looking through pedrito's edits to see where the J+S problems arose. These articles were all edited in a set by pedrito, so I looked at them, and corrected the errors that I saw. So please stop saying things that you do not know, they can easily be mistaken for lies. And my edits were for the most part not reverts. Shuki added "town" "neighborhood" or whatever to the articles, placing them in before "Israeli settlement". I changed that order, but did not undo any part of Shuki's edits, I left "village" "town" or whatever, but I modified that placement. And where do you get off asking me for a policy based argument and then complaining when I provide one? This was by no means a "mass revert" as most of the edits were not even reverts. However, Shuki's reversion of these edits would be categorized as a "mass reversion" by your definition (though I would not say that they were), but you again take no issue with that. I am not going to stay here and argue the point with you, I dont exactly have a whole lot of faith in your objectivity or fairness so I dont see the point. You have said you "agree" with a user that has implicitly called me a racist in the post you apparently agree with and then have the gall to chastise me for things that are simply not true. There is no point to continuing with you here, so bye. nableezy - 02:52, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I take exception to the accusation that I called you an antisemite or racist, implicitedly or otherwise and to number57's assertion that I "played the antisemite card." I challenge you to find anything even vaguely resembling a personal attack in my post. I do stand by my belief that your posting and editing clearly shows an anti-Israel bias, and if you insist that stating that I see a bias in your work is the same as calling you an antisemite or a racist, go ahead. I would just remember to take a look at everything that you have said of me regarding bias (and I can find them for you), and you will see that at best you will be seen as the pot calling the kettle black. (No racism intended, implicit or otherwise.) No one has called you a racist, so you should get off your high horse and start making good WP edits and policy-based arguments instead of attacking other editors because they disagree with you. Thank you. Stellarkid (talk) 03:58, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

saying "this dehumanization of the Jewish community in and around Israel is really very troubling" in reference to nableezy's justified insistence on using the most notable, common descriptor is an accusation of racism. full stop. untwirl(talk) 04:08, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, first of all then you must convict me for the accusation of racism against number57 since it was his post

"Yes, but places like Elon Moreh are primarily known for being Israeli settlements rather than a village, moshav, town or whatever. Other geographical localilty articles around the world do not have this issue because Israeli settlements are almost unique by their virtue of being illegally constructed on occupied territory (I suppose the only equivalent would be Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara, but I'm not sure how far recognition of Morocco's occupation goes). And yes, I would expect to see Tranquility is a moon colony, not Tranquility is a village on the moon, as a moon colony has far more meaning!"

and his dehumanizing of real villages with real people in them as "almost unique by their virtue of being illegally constructed on occupied territory" rather than unique as villages with real people in them, was my original motivator. I suggest you try to put the shoe on the other foot if you can for a second, and see if you would like it if someone said something similar, about a Palestinian "encampment" in Israel for example. Refusing to see a village as a village or a neighborhood as a neighborhood simply because you disagree with those people politically or even a lot of people feel that way, it is still a village first and a settlement later. If you want to take this as a personal attack on my part that is your prerogative; but I must say that to do so is to make a personal attack of your own. I made an argument for an edit and said I was troubled by what I see as an attempt to dehumanize Israel and Israelis by turning them from human beings into "illegal occupiers" everywhere in WP, using any and every conceivable argument. Stellarkid (talk) 04:51, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec) I am not dealing with this conversation anymore, but a tip for you. If you intend to reply to somebody you should indicate that by the level of your indent. Immediately following a comment with an additional indent is usually take as a reply to the comment you followed. So your comment looked like it was a reply to mine. But your argument is even more ridiculous when applied to Number57, but I'll leave it to you to figure out why it would be silly to accuse N57 of "dehumanizing Israel and Israelis" (this would give you an idea of why that would be a silly accusation). nableezy - 05:07, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

<- I find it baffling why people get so aggravated over this issue. It's really rather routine for the Supreme Court of Israel to refer to Israeli settlements as 'Israeli settlements' and Palestinian villages as 'Palestinian villages' in their rulings. This is typical but just have a look through their rulings. If they're quite happy to talk about 'settlement activities' producing 'Israeli settlements' in areas they recognise as being governed by the 'law of belligerent occupation' what's the problem ? Sean.hoyland - talk 06:50, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Well Sean.hoyland that was an interesting Supreme Court of Israel ruling in a number of ways. You are quite right that they regularly (certainly in this ruling) refer to Israeli "settlements" and Palestinian "villages." However I do think it is easy to understand that in the context of a legal and political document such as this one -- that legal and political terms would tend to be used. I did a quick count just as a point of curiosity, and see they refer to "villages" some 42 times and "settlements" some 23 times. They did however refer to these settlements as "neighborhoods" some 78 times. Neighborhoods certainly has a more human ring to it than does "settlements." On another note, I ran a quick check on Judea and Samaria - fourteen times, and West Bank, twice. Make what you will of it. Stellarkid (talk) 03:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Number57 (and others), let us look for more/other NPOV, accurate, good writing examples on WP to strengthen the argument that we should open the lead with the more specific description rather than an ambiguously vague one: Chemists who come from France, for example. In most of the articles in that cat Category:French chemists, the subject of the article is described: 'ABC is a French chemist'. The lead is not 'ABC is a French scientist', or 'ABC is a scientist from France', or 'ABC is a French scientist and chemist', etc... Now for some exceptional reason, on Jewish locality articles the WP community enforces the idea that 'Modiin Illit is an Israeli city' implies that Modiin Illit is 'in Israel' but 'Modiin Illit is an Israeli settlement' somehow does not imply that the settlement is in Israel (settlement being a noun widely used in WP to describe all other human localities). Since it is better and more accepted editing to refer to the persons above specifically as French chemists, chemist being the most specific name to describe what they do as opposed to the vague 'scientist' term than likewise for the Jewish locality articles, it is more reasonable to use the more specific type of locality. I do not deny the general term 'Israeli settlement' and there is no attempt to remove it from the lead paragraph, even if it being in the lead sentence is a bit of awkward. But it is misleading to blanketly give this generalized label (which means any Jewish residence built by Israel or Israelis) to lead the lead. --Shuki (talk) 07:30, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Israeli settlement does not mean any Jewish residence built by Israel or Israelis. The term "Israeli settlement" is not just a settlement in the general use of the word built by Israel or Israelis. The term itself has a specific meaning and it much more specific than "village" or "town". It mean an Israeli locality built in the Israeli-occupied territories. Currently there are Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights. A village in the Negev or in other places in Israel is not an "Israeli settlement". But "Israeli settlement" is not a "generalized label", it refers to a very specific set of localities built in the occupied territories. And NPOV specifically says that we do not treat fringe-sized views on the same level as what is the overwhelming majority views in reliable sources. The overwhelming majority view is that these places are "Israeli settlements" and they are near universally called this, often exclusively. The most notable thing about these places is that they are built in occupied territory. Not that there is a shop that has fresh apples. Modiin Illit is an Israeli settlement does not imply that it is in Israel, it in fact says flatly that it is outside of Israel and that it is in Israeli-occupied territory, specifically in occupied Palestinian territory. nableezy - 17:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Nableezy said: "The most notable thing about these places is that they are built in occupied territory." "These places?" You wouldn't be generalizing now would you? And you are claiming that the 'most notable thing' is that they are built in occupied territory? They are Israeli neighborhoods in what the Palestinians claim belongs to them? Has that been adjudicated yet? Who says that this is "the most notable thing about them? This sounds much like a political interpretation and POV to me. Stellarkid (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Generalizing what? Israeli settlements are known as "Israeli settlements" throughout the English speaking world before any other description. Not as "villages" "towns" "cities" or any other description. That may very well be a general statement about Israeli settlements. But "occupied territory" is not just "what the Palestinians claim", the entire world recognizes that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the Golan are occupied by Israel. What is the "political interpretation and POV" is the idea that because the occupying power designates a place a "village" or "town" or "city" that we then use that as the primary description of the place instead of what the entire world uses to describe the place before and often to the exclusion of any other description. That is not what NPOV says, it in fact says the exact opposite. nableezy - 21:45, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Stellarkid, I'm really begging you to stop this politicised style of arguing. It is okay for the likes of CAMERA etc to make these kinds of arguments. It's not okay here. Our objective is to build an encyclopedia based on what the reliable sources say, not what we think. The policies are quite clear about these matters. We are not here to 'teach the controversy' when reliable sources indicate that for our purposes there is no controversry. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

nableezy is correct; "israeli settlement" is a specific term with a different meaning than simply "settlement." the discussion on Modiin Illit took place on that talk page and the consensus was overwhelmingly against you, shuki. taking your unsupported opinion and applying it to many different articles is a violation of point and consensus and, frankly, is against the sanctions applied in arbcom's i/p ruling. i shall revert your additions across several articles and raise this at the appropriate noticeboard if you do not cease this behavior. untwirl(talk) 17:53, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Bravo Untwirl! So you open up a misleading and false arbitration enforcement in order to shut me up. Oh, and there was no consensus at Modi'in Illit. I understood that the discussion on that low volume page was going nowhere and decided the argument needed to cool off for a more comprehensive community discussion that you obviously are not interested in. A word of genuine advice (useful off of WP as well): sometimes it is best not to raise judgement on others because it opens the door for judgement on yourself. --Shuki (talk) 21:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

please correct anything false or misleading about my report. you were warned about the sanctions and completely ignored them. i'm sorry you feel that i'm attempting to silence you, i'll change my suggestion to a editing topic ban, excluding talk pages rather than topic ban. i know it can't be pleasant for you to have that request for enforcement listed, but let me assure you that it isn't personal. i respect your effort to have your point of view included, but it is disruptive to alter a string of articles in disregard of the special sanctions that these articles are covered by. i look forward to participating in that comprehensive community discussion of which you speak, please link me to it when it is raised and good luck. untwirl(talk) 21:44, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

So kind of you but I don't have to correct your sloppy and suspect editing mistakes and I refuse to even give more credit to your preposterous claims. I suggest you request mentoring for yourself before you do more damage. Good night. --Shuki (talk) 22:26, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Current opening sentence of Barack Obama: "Barack Hussein Obama II .. is the 44th and current President of the United States."
Shuki-esque version: "Barack Hussein Obama II .. is a husband and father."
"Compromise" version: "Barack Hussein Obama II .. is a husband and father and the 44th and current President of the United States."
I vote for the current version. Zero^talk 00:48, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

FYI --Nsaum75 (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I always assumed that DYK was an interesting 'trivia' bit from a random article. Now I see that it is simply some sort of recognition for good work on expanding an article in a short time. The work done on exapanding Ayn Ghazal should be commended as all other editors who contribute time on WP to write good articles, but I don't know what is so special about it to deserve a mention, especially a non-exceptional sentence being singled out for publicity. --Shuki (talk) 06:42, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I recently created the article Shulamith Shahar, about a historian who won the 2003 Israel Prize. I found one article in an English-language Israel newspaper. I would appreciate it if someone could search through the Hebrew-language newspaper archives and see if any further information is available about her. Any translations of reliable sources that I could include in the article would be much appreciated! Karanacs (talk) 02:29, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

/a debate about whether to allow a link to Goldstonereport.org, an academic advocacy blog about the report.Josh02138 (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Malik Shabazz --Shuki (talk) 08:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Recently Template:Infobox Israeli political party became a soft-encoded version of Template:Infobox political party. A consequence of this was the removal of the "MPheight" parameter (which states the number of Knesset members the party had at peak size). Is this a desirable effect? I think the number is an important piece of info about the party, clearly stating a great deal about the party's significance and should be restored. What are others thoughts? Rami R 10:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I've begun going through and replacing {{Infobox Israeli political party}} with {{Infobox political party}}. Within this there is a function that allows you to enter three seat characterstics - for this I have been using "Most MKs", "Fewest MKs" and "Current MKs". See Balad as an example of how I have applied it. I think this is generally the way forward, as I don't see the need to have a separate template for each country's parties. пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

In the Herut article it notes that Begin resigned as leader in 1951, was briefly replaced by Aryeh Ben-Eliezer (who stood down in the same year), then Ya'akov Rubin, before becoming leader again. However, the Hebrew wiki, or the English and Hebrew articles on Begin do not mention this. Did Begin stand down as leader? If so, when did he return? пﮟოьεԻ 57 15:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Just FYI: Editor Ani medjool has been purging Israel-related categories from a large number of articles pertaining to the Golan Heights. See his edit history for further information. --nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 03:16, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Case opened on ANI WP:ANI#User:Ani medjool --Shuki (talk) 22:45, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Unorganized merge discussion - MV Francop‎ and Operation Four Species. One suggestions has the operation merged into the ship article, another the ship article merged into the opeartion. I'm willing to delete both on the basis of WP:NEWS only or rather merge into United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. --Shuki (talk) 18:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think this article should be changed to a wikiproject Israel article because it is about Israel. Here is the article Jerusalem during the second temple period. It was translated from hebrew to english so maybe somone that is an expert on this subject could help make this page a whole lot better. Please help, thanks. - BennyK95 - Talk 22:29, October 19 2009 (UTC)

Seriously, is this what happens when you take an article from the Hebrew wikipedia and pass it through google translate? It's incomprehensible. Poliocretes (talk) 14:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI: List of Syrian towns and villages destroyed by Israel --nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 15:59, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

FYI - Discussion on possible name change Talk:List of Syrian towns and villages destroyed by Israel#Requested move

*FYI, the above msg.--nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 16:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Drama brewing at List of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel. Sigh. Stepopen (talk) 04:43, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There is currently a discussion relating to the renaming of the mountain Givat Orcha located here. --nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 19:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Is It's a good day to die (film) a notable Israeli film? My English-language Google search revealed nothing. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 20:07, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Golan_Heights#RfC:_Mountain_names. nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 20:24, 27 November 2009 (UTC) (Using {{Please see}})

An RfC regarding which archaeological categories the Second Temple should fall under is currently underway here. --nsaum75 ^¡שיחת! 10:37, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I was tracking down vandal edits / tests edits when I hit some on the page Jerusalem Law. I'm pretty sure that this edit was problematic, but have been some edits since some of which also appear to be test edits. I think this version was the last good version but felt slightly uncomfortable making that change myself. The [most recent changes] seem to be a COPYVIO problem but add a new source. Anyways might be nice if someone more knowledgeable about the subject took a look and untangled it and figured here was a good place to ask since it's covered by your project. PaleAqua (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried to add signature to Template:Welcomeen-he, so that it is consistent with other similar messages, but I'm not sure the Hebrew part displays correctly. Can somebody who knows Hebrew check this? Thanks. Svick (talk) 16:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe I have fixed the problem. Thank you for bringing it up. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 16:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

It appears that WikiProject Israel has crossed the 7,000-article threshold. Congratulations to the project on this milestone! Please take note however, that the number of high-quality articles is extremely low by comparison. It appears that the overwhelming majority are stub and start-class, and very few C-class and higher. I call on all members of the project to improve the quality of existing articles, especially considering many start-class articles, given a few more references, would easily pass as C-class. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 17:35, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

See next Israeli AG (From 1 2010) Yehuda Weinsteinm replacing Menachem Mazuz --93.173.222.234 (talk) 14:12, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see this article nominated for GA status. Anyone know the ropes and willing to do this?--Gilabrand (talk) 14:55, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I suggest first rewriting the beginning which is copyvio from the government site. --Shuki (talk) 21:09, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe you are mistaken. I looked at the government site and while there may be similar information, it is not copied and far from any kind of copyright violation. If you can contribute positively, that would be great, but don't make baseless accusations.--Gilabrand (talk) 04:33, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Come on, really? We have enough people to argue with on this site already... shouldn't be mean to the few members we have in this project :) Breein1007 (talk) 04:56, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I dont have a horse in the race, but there are some issues with the phrasing used. Compare the following:

MFA: The percentage of Israelis engaged in scientific and technological inquiry, and the amount spent on research and development (R&D), in relation to its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), are among the highest in the world.

Article: The percentage of Israelis engaged in scientific and technological inquiry, and the amount spent on research and development (R&D) in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), is amongst the highest in the world.

MFA: The Agricultural Station, set up in Tel Aviv (1921), eventually became the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), today Israel’s major institution of agricultural research and development.

Article: The Agricultural Station, founded in Tel Aviv in 1921, became the Agricultural Research Organization (ARO), now Israel’s major institution of agricultural research and development.

MFA: Medical and public health research was initiated prior to World War I with the founding of the Hebrew Health Station. It received a major boost when the Institute of Microbiology and departments of biochemistry, bacteriology, and hygiene were instituted in the mid-1920s at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. These provided the basis for the Hadassah Medical Center, today Israel’s most prominent medical research facility.

Article: Medical and public health research was initiated prior to World War I with the founding of the Hebrew Health Station. The Institute of Microbiology and departments of biochemistry, bacteriology, and hygiene opened at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, established in 1925. These provided the basis for the Hadassah Medical Center, today Israel’s most prominent medical research facility.

MFA: Industrial research was pioneered at the Dead Sea Laboratories in the 1930s, and advances in basic science and technology were begun at the Hebrew University (est. 1925), the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology (est. 1924 in Haifa), and the Daniel Sieff Research Center (est. 1934 in Rehovot), which later became the Weizmann Institute of Science (1949).

Article: Industrial research was pioneered at the Dead Sea Laboratories in the 1930s, and advances in basic science and technology were begun at the Hebrew University, the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (established in 1924 in Haifa), and the Daniel Sieff Research Center (established in 1934 in Rehovot), which later became the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1949.

My opinion is that the text in the article is too close to the source. nableezy - 05:00, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

This is unquestionably a copyright violation. It needs to be rewritten or deleted post haste. Thank you, Breein1007 , for pointing this out. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Nableezy. --Shuki (talk) 07:59, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry, Nableezy, not Breein. Well, Breein, too. --Ravpapa (talk) 15:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

haha Breein1007 (talk) 16:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The article is a good collaboration between Gilabrand and Chefallen, and I applaud them for their effort in improving an actually important article for WP Israel. Having said that, in my honest opinion, the article is very far from GA-class. I will raise the major issues on the article's talk page. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:54, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

There appears to be a lack of uniformity as to the use of these two seemingly overlapping groups of categories, namely: immigrants to Israel from a particular country (e.g. Category:Polish immigrants to Israel and Israeli people by ethnic or national origin (e.g. Category:Israelis of Polish descent. In many instances, articles on individuals appear in both groups with respect to the same country and elsewhere one or other of the categories appears to have been chosen almost at random.

I propose the following guidelines on the use of these categories (which appear to be generally consistent with the use elsewhere on Wikipedia, although I have not managed to locate any formal guidelines or previous discussion on the matter):

• Use “Category:XXXXish immigrants to Israel” where the individual was born or lived for a material time in the country in question. (It is not relevant whether the immigration took place prior to or after the declaration of the State of Israel, provided the individual lived in Israel subsequent to the declaration.) I believe that this category should be used for each country concerned where the territory in question has passed from the ownership of one country to another or there has been some other change in sovereignty.
• Use “Category:Israelis of XXXXish descent” where the individual did not live in the country in question but is descended from someone who did, or who had the relevent ethnic origin.

Examples:

(1) A person born of Polish parents in Germany in 1920 and who escaped to the UK in 1939 and immigrated to Israel in 1960, would be assigned the following categories Category:Israelis of Polish descent, Category:German immigrants to Israel and Category:British immigrants to Israel.

(2) A person born in Israel of Polish parents who immigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1935 would be assigned Category:Israelis of Polish descent.

(3) A person born in 1910 in Alsace (then in Germany but French following WWI) would be assigned Category:French immigrants to Israel and Category:German immigrants to Israel.

I am adding a link to this discussion on the discussion pages of the parent category for both groups.

Comments would be appreciated. Davshul (talk) 16:26, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above. However, I have reverted some of your recategorisation of Soviet Jews/immigrants to Israel, which you replaced with Ukrainian and/or Russian (e.g. Tzvi Tzur) - I don't believe you can claim anyone as a Ukrainian immigrant to Israel until after Ukraine was independent. пﮟოьεԻ 57 16:42, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The whole question of the categorization of immigrants from the Soviet Union and its successor states is clearly complex and, I believe, should be dealt with as a separate discussion item in order that we can arrive at a consensus. It is for this reason that, in the examples given above, I deliberately did not include examples of territory annexed by the Soviet Union. Davshul (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Why don't we just do away with the “[nationally] immigrants to Israel” category? Seems rather pointless having two overlapping categories. The distinction isn't very important and "Israelis of XXXish origin" can contain both. Poliocretes (talk) 16:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that the purpose of these proposed guidelines is to avoid the "overlapping". I too would like to do away with an unnecessary category. However, I am not sure that "Israelis of XXXish origin" (or "descent", the actual name of the category) can cover both. In the example (1) give above, I do not believe "British" could be considered as the "origin" or the "descent". Davshul (talk) 17:41, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

A large section was split from Israeli settlements to a separate article, so it's not on anyone's watchlist. --Shuki (talk) 21:04, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Factsontheground has now changed the title of that POV article to Israeli settler violence. --Shuki (talk) 22:19, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Category:Archaeological sites in Israeli occupied territories has been nominated for deletion, renaming or whatever. Your input would be welcome at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2009 December 23#Category:Archaeological_sites_in_Israeli_occupied_territories. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:37, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe there is room to reconsider this article for GA status. It is far from perfect, but then again, no articles on Wikipedia are ever perfect. Many references have been added since the article was reviewed in 2007, and it offers quite an extensive view of the subject. On a general note, I think that editors here are being too picky when it comes to upgrading articles. It seems telling that there are only 6 articles that have reached featured status, and very few in the medium/high categories. Looking at other articles on Wikipedia that have passed GA, I think many Israel-related articles are equally worthy - if not much more so. High standards should be applauded, but there is no need to overdo it, to the detriment of the project.--Gilabrand (talk) 08:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is indeed approaching GA quality in terms of content. The only thing I think is lacking is more information on trance/electronic/house, from where some of the biggest international names from Israel have come, yet it's the shortest section. Otherwise the article is good, although for an actual GA nomination I believe it needs serious structure and formatting work. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 11:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, it is one of the Israeli articles I have a big problem with especially with regard to the lack of uniformity of style and writing. A lot of seemingly OR too. Besides the small trance section, the 'Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish music' is also entirely undeveloped. --Shuki (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I completely agree that the article needs serious cleanup as far as style, structure and consistency go. However, I believe it's in good shape (by comparison) content-wise, covering almost all major points. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 01:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The article that is in really bad shape is not this, but Jewish music. We should make that article a priority. It is an embarrassment. --Ravpapa (talk) 10:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

There is an RFC on whether and how to qualify Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in the Israel article, see Talk:Israel#Request_for_Comment.2FJerusalem. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 16:49, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned in the previous discussion item, I would like to reach a consensus on the use of the appropriate categories regarding immigrants to Israel from territories that were within the former Soviet Union. Current categories include Category:Soviet immigrants to Israel, Category:Russian immigrants to Israel, as well as categories for immigrants from each of the other independent states formed on the breakup of the Soviet Union.

A number of issues come to mind, including the following.

• When, and if, to use Category:Soviet immigrants to Israel. This category currently contains only three individuals, and is the only subcategory of the container category Category:Immigrants to Israel to refer to an historic entity (for example there is no category “Yugoslav immigrants to Israel” or “Czechoslovak immigrants to Israel”). Although it might be an appropriate category for those who emigrated during the period of Soviet rule, the vast majority of immigrants from the Soviet Union appear to have been placed in Category:Russian immigrants to Israel which currently contains some 100 individuals. Possibly the preferable course of action is to propose a merger of the two categories into “Russian and Soviet immigrants to Israel”.

• Whether the categories of the successor states (e.g. Category:Ukrainian immigrants to Israel, Category:Belarusian immigrants to Israel, etc.) should be used for immigrants to Israel prior to such states attaining independence. пﮟოьεԻ 57 stated in the previous discussion item that he does not believe “you can claim anyone as a Ukrainian immigrant to Israel until after Ukraine was independent.” I’m not sure that I agree where the immigrant clearly come from a location now within the territory of the successor state (although in such circumstances such category would be in addition to the Russian/Soviet category). Currently, there are over 50 individuals in Category:Ukrainian immigrants to Israel and over 20 in Category:Belarusian immigrants to Israel, all or nearly all of whom emigrated prior to independence.

• To what extent the Baltic States should be treated as a special case. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia were independent states from the end of World War I until incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1940, (which incorporation was never recognized by a number of states, including the US). There appears to be a strong argument to including immigrants in, say, Category:Lithuanian immigrants to Israel irrespective of when they immigrated, no matter what consensus is reach with regard to the other (non-Baltic) successor states. The numbers involved appear to be relatively low.

• Immigrants from territory annexed by the Soviet Union. These would presumably be dealt with in accordance with the principals outlined in the previous discussion item.

Comments would be appreciated. Davshul (talk) 20:10, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

"the vast majority of immigrants from the Soviet Union appear to have been placed in Category:Russian immigrants to Israel" - I'm not sure why you say "appear to have been placed", as you are fully aware that they have been put there because you did it! For immigrants whose nationality at time of making aliyah was unclear, I left them in the main category Category:Immigrants to Israel. It is original research to denote someone's nationality in many of these cases (particularly people born in areas of the Russian Empire which later became Poland, Lithuania or the USSR as it is often unclear what nationality they held at the time of immigrating to Israel). Double categorising as you have done here is even worse - Suzayiv cannot be a Russian immigrant to Israel - he was either Latvian or Soviet at the time. I would urge you to revert all the edits you made which took people out of the main category in cases where nationality is unclear, otherwise I will probably end up doing it. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ 57 20:33, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that I was not able to come back to you earlier. (Pressure of trying to earn a living and various personal commitments is unfortunately currently leaving little or no Wiki-time.) Whilst I admit that Category:Russian immigrants to Israel is not wholly appropriate for one who emigrated to Israel during the Soviet period, the placing of individuals in the main category Category:Immigrants to Israel is also not wholly satisfactory. This is one of the reasons why I suggested above that a proposal be made to merge the two categories Category:Russian immigrants to Israel and Category:Soviet immigrants to Israel, which might provide a convenient category in a number of the cases considered unclear. In fact, there are only two other instances of a category for Soviet immigrants, (for immigrants to United States and to Canada, each of which contain only 5 or 6 entries) and the proposal for merger could cover these as well - on a random check of the categories of Russian immigrants to these countries, revealed a number who emigrated during the Soviet period or where no date of immigration is given. Davshul (talk) 18:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

related to Judaism? One editor is insisting on List of religious leaders in 2010 or article discussion page. --Shuki (talk) 18:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I see there's a request for an article by the name of Yarmukian. Is this supposed to be the Yarmukian culture unearthed at Sha'ar HaGolan or something else completely? Poliocretes (talk) 13:01, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

There's an area labelled on the above map marked as the old city. But I think it might be Mount Scopus. Which is it? (This message is also being posted to WP:Palestine).--Peter cohen (talk) 14:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you are right. The Old City is directly adjacent to the Green Line and roughly centered to the Jerusalem corridor, whereas Mount Scopus is located some distance from the line and to the north of the centrepoint. пﮟოьεԻ 57 14:43, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Peter's right. It's certainly not the Old City, which directly abuts West Jerusalem, and seems in the right place for Mount Scopus. RolandR (talk) 14:52, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks both. I'm off to change the map which will confuse future readers of this thread.--Peter cohen (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually it seems to need a graphics editor and I'm currently using a clunky old machine without the relevant software. Anyone else feel able to help out? I've contacted he uploader too to check on the copyright as I wonder whether (s)he's taken somene else's graphic which (s)he's misunderstood.--Peter cohen (talk) 16:11, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Imi Lichtenfeld need additional information and Krav Maga really needs a rewrite because the information is of questionable quality.

Dwanyewest (talk) 11:39, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

There is a current discussion on the article POV due to undue weight, if anyone is interested. Regards, – Fuzzy – 16:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello. I need some help.

I am new to this, but when I saw some very inflammatory sentences ("crime") in a section on the ICC in "Israeli Occupied Territories" (basically a polemic), I removed them. The user responded by adding a four-line extremely inflammatory quote ("war crimes") from some obscure sources. I responded by removing the original line that he put back (he added to the reference in an attempt at synthesis), quoting what his source actually said, as well as the Israeli statement on signing, which at least partially refutes his point. (I did not remove the quote.) I put this in a new paragraph, and also added some info on countries not joining the ICC. The whole seemed relatively neutral in tone. (This at some personal cost, but I felt responsible.)

I knew it would not last. The author loaded on more anti-Israel material, and removed my paragraph break, I presume to keep it from standing out. All I could do was add back the break, and remove one word qualifying Israel's objections.

I am in over my head, and afraid I have done more harm than good. This is not my area of expertise. Can someone help? Please? Mzk1 (talk) 17:31, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi, letting any interested Wikipedians on this project know that I've placed a move request to move Proposals for a Jewish state to "Proposals to establish a Jewish state outside of Israel". Full rationale can be found on Talk:Proposals for a Jewish state. 84.92.117.93 (talk) 18:25, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:28, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Just produced an article on Benny Shalita - the Hebrew wiki claims that when elected head of Menahemia local council, he was the country's youngest-ever mayor (age 22) - can anyone find a Hebrew language reference for it, as it could be a good DYK hook? And could anyone translate the stuff about his misdeeds from the Hebrew wiki - don't really want to mistranslate anything in that area for a BLP! Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ 57 11:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

A quote I put inside this article was removed, citing as reason: (→Criticism: delete 8 year old information; no evidence it is still true).

There followed reverts (not by me) and no agreement on the talk page.

Setreset (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Please help discuss the current selection. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 07:35, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Category:Regional Wikipedian notice boards

Hello to Israel. For your information: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Yosef Chaim Shwekey. There are some links needing the attention of people fluent in Hebrew (, , ). Thanks. --Vejvančický (talk) 09:46, 2 February 2010 (UTC):

This is an absolutely horrendous article that deserves to be deleted.--Gilabrand (talk) 09:49, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion, but I'm talking about the notability of the subject, not about the ability of the article to scare people. People with your cultural background could offer a better informed opinion. I'm asking, since I'm not sure. --Vejvančický (talk) 10:04, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated El Al for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Arsenikk ^(talk) 11:01, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

In the article Night of the Gliders (which relates to the incident in 1987, in which a infiltrator, using a hang glider to access an Israeli camp in South Lebanon, killed 6 IDF soldiers and wounded 8 others), there have been attempts (all currently reversed) by an unnamed user to change the casualties figures to 37 killed and 20 wounded (based, I believe, upon the claim of a Hamas Arabic language website). The same user has also added a link to the equivalent Wikipedia article in Arabic (obviously not reversed). Would someone proficient in Arabic please access the Wikipedia Arabic article and ascertain whether the same spurious claims have been made on that site and, if so, correct the situation. Davshul (talk) 13:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have nominated Israel for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Cptnono (talk) 14:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Just a heads-up that some issues raised on Talk:Falafel may be coming to this page. I think it might be important to deal with them here. --AFriedman (talk) 03:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

We have a long-standing dispute/edit war going on at Yehuda Amichai. User:Epeefleche is currently trying to mediate at Talk:Yehuda Amichai, but it's quite intense and it looks like it's going to take a fair bit of time and effort. If there's anyone here who might be able to join in the mediation attempt, and offer opinions and suggestions, I would be very grateful. (Disclaimer: I am one of the parties in the dispute) -- Boing! said Zebedee 05:27, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

PS: I have produced a lot of diffs to illustrate the problem, but they're probably not needed at this stage yet - I have them for when they're needed. -- Boing! said Zebedee 14:46, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

I believe there is room to reconsider this article for GA status. It is far from perfect, but then again, no articles on Wikipedia are ever perfect. Many references have been added since the article was reviewed in 2007, and it offers quite an extensive view of the subject. On a general note, I think that editors here are being too picky when it comes to upgrading articles. It seems telling that there are only 6 articles that have reached featured status, and very few in the medium/high categories. Looking at other articles on Wikipedia that have passed GA, I think many Israel-related articles are equally worthy - if not much more so. High standards should be applauded, but there is no need to overdo it, to the detriment of the project.--Gilabrand (talk) 08:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is indeed approaching GA quality in terms of content. The only thing I think is lacking is more information on trance/electronic/house, from where some of the biggest international names from Israel have come, yet it's the shortest section. Otherwise the article is good, although for an actual GA nomination I believe it needs serious structure and formatting work. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, it is one of the Israeli articles I have a big problem with especially with regard to the lack of uniformity of style and writing. A lot of seemingly OR too. Besides the small trance section, the 'Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish music' is also entirely undeveloped. --Shuki (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I completely agree that the article needs serious cleanup as far as style, structure and consistency go. However, I believe it's in good shape (by comparison) content-wise, covering almost all major points. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The article that is in really bad shape is not this, but Jewish music. We should make that article a priority. It is an embarrassment. --Ravpapa (talk) 10:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have brought the above discussion back from the archive, as WP Israel editors continue to sit on the fence. There are several articles in the B category that could easily be upgraded to GA status. It is a crying shame that only Pallywood-type articles like Muhammad Al-Durrah are promoted and everything else just sits because of a certain overcritical stance in this project that does not exist on the rest of Wikipedia. People, get off your haunches and do something.--Gilabrand (talk) 07:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

I've finished the article on Ram Loevy, which is still classed as a "Start Class" article. I believe that it and the related articles (Barricades (documentary film); Close, Closed, Closure, and The Film that Wasn't) are all beyond the stage of Start articles, and in fact, I have nominated Ram Loevy for Good Article. I believe that it is the most comprehensive bio of a contemporary Israeli artist anywhere on Wikipedia, in English or Hebrew. As such, it would be nice to get it out of the Start Class. Danny (talk) 12:26, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Note that there are a lot of red links in the article, representing key figures in Israeli culture (authors, performers, books, Rafik Halabi, etc.). That is unfortunate. Danny (talk) 13:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The above has been nominated for featured-article status. If there's any interest in reviewing it, the nomination page is here. Cheers, SlimVirgin ^{TALK contribs} 12:05, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to mention that the big issue here seems to be the the initial part refers to Israel initially "taking responsibility", which is not quite so - they said it was an accident. I do not feel qualified to fix it, though. Mzk1 (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Why is this even mentioned? al dura was killed by arabs staging a fake Israeli shooting (a concept known as pallywood). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXVstrwA7OM This video clearly denotes how these arab refugees stage fake fire-fights and blamed their shooting of al dura on the Israelis, causing a second intifada. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.86.233.94 (talk) 07:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

69.86, that is not what Wikipedia says. Wikipedia says the cause has been disputed. And Wikipedia rightfully says so. WhisperToMe (talk) 11:33, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Hi. There is an RfC currently in progress on the Yehuda Amichai Talk page, concerning an ongoing content dispute. As the article is within the scope of WikiProject Israel and has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale, someone involved might wish to comment. -- Boing! said Zebedee 04:32, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

See

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 25#Category:Rabbis of the Land of Israel
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 February 25#Category:Talmud rabbis of the Land of Israel

(proposed renaming back to their original titles) 01:07, 25 February 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newman Luke (talk • contribs)

I'm looking to get comments on this. NickCT (talk) 15:11, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Where can I find a map of the Hevel Modi'in Regional Council? I'm trying to check to see if Ben Gurion International Airport is within the limits of the council. Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

You can find a map at either www.govmap.gov.il or gis.pnim.gov.il , but to quickly answer your question, the answer is no. The airport is not part of any municipality. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 23:56, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

I downloaded the ActiveX viewer to view http://www.govmap.gov.il/viewer.asp - the viewer starts off with some boundaries. Are those boundaries the council boundaries, or do I need to check certain boxes in order to view boundaries? Which boxes do I check? (I can't read Hebrew) WhisperToMe (talk) 20:25, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I am asking, kindly, what characters refer to the council/municipal boundaries? How do I display these on the map? Do they display when the application first starts? WhisperToMe (talk) 11:42, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

The dotted gray borders (they become red if you zoom in more) denote municipalities, marked by the black italic Arial text. I have made a simple image in MSPaint to illustrate the borders for your convenience: http://www.ynhockey.net/fwiki/llbg-modiin.png —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:03, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Explanation: the light purple is Hevel Modi'in, the green says "No Jurisdiction", which is mostly equivalent to the territory of the Ben Gurion airport. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 12:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much :) - So, this means it is in the Tel Aviv District but not in any municipality. That's very interesting! WhisperToMe (talk) 12:24, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

I came across this editor when correcting a WP:CSD#G4 issue. A look at his contribution history indicates, at least to me, a distinct POV, which, in and of itself, is not an issue, but I am afraid that the the recent edits themselves may not be in accord with WP:NPOV as they seem somewhat cherry-picked and WP:UNDUE, but I leave it to people more involved with the conflict than I to investigate. -- Avi (talk) 14:55, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Mount_Yosifon

I have provided several reliable sources at the talkpage showing its real, standardized name. If anyone has reliable sources for its name, sources calling the hill something else, please ad them to the talkpage. I will hopefully soon be changing the name of the article to what the reliable sources say. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 19:19, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

AMuseo (talk) 12:37, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Israel has National Parks and it has National Heritage Sites and the two lists overlap but are not identical. Is that right? Separate official designations exist? Such that the Cave of the Patriarchs is an official National Heritage Site without being a National Park? And I assume that nature reserves such as Taninim Nature Reserve are national parks but not a national heritage site. The parks are at http://www.parks.org.il Does anyone know where the list of heritage sites can be found?Broad Wall (talk) 13:16, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

The list is not final, and, according to the guidelines of the Heritage Plan, is subject to change. The proposed list can be found here (in Hebrew only - I couldn't find it in English).

The Heritage program was decided on on February 22 by the Cabinet. The objective is, among other things, to provide a budgetary framework for the preservation and maintenance of sites the government deems relevant to Israel's history. The plan aroused angry responses from the Israeli right when it was published, because the proposed heritage sites did not include the Patriarchs' tomb and Rachel's tomb, both of which are in the West Bank. The tomb of the Patriarchs, in Hebron, is an especially hot topic, since it is holy to both Muslims and Jews, and a particularly sensitive flashpoint in the region. In response to the anger from the right, the government immediately added the two sites, thus raising the ire of the Palestinians, the left, and foreign governments. So now the government has succeeded in making everyone mad at them.

In spite of the tararam surrounding the announcement of the plan, the actual list is very hard to find, and is not published in any easily accessible way on any of the government websites. In any case, IMHO, the nature of the list renders it too unstable to make into a category or to include a list in the Wikipedia. Regards, --Ravpapa (talk) 15:18, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Heritage sites, National parks, and nature reserves - all overlap somewhat. IMO, the whole Heritage site issue was totally blown out of proportion in the media and anti-Israelis. --Shuki (talk) 22:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Please see here. --Shuki (talk) 22:37, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

An editor has raised the question of whether the Jewish Virtual Library is a reliable source. Please weigh in at WP:RSN#http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 04:15, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Please can people comment and assist at Hurva Synagogue, pending FA promotion. Thanks. Chesdovi (talk) 21:58, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Recent edits suggests that this article may be heading for the normal pointless edit wars i.e. whether Hebrew should come before Arabic, occupied vs disputed, a rare form of dyslexia that renders the Discussion tab invisible to editors etc. Some sensible people might want to step in to avert a potential forest fire. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:26, 12 March 2010 (UTC) Yup, it's about a wind farm. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:28, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seconded the prod of 10 agorot controversy for reasons stated on the article's talk page. In essence, I recommended that the information to be incorporated in the existing agorot article or - better yet - part of a new Coinage of Israel article outlining the history and design of each coin denomination minted and circulated by Israel. If each denomination can have more than a couple of cited paragraphs, separate articles of them would be in order (redirects can hold their places in the meantime). I also mentioned that Currency of Israel could be set up in a similar fashion - and then was surprised that Currency of Israel, which should cover the history of the subject, was merely a redirect to a two branch disambiguation page, Israeli shekel! This clearly overlooks the currency used in the State of Israel from 1948 to 1980 in addition to that might have been used for coinage and currency in the Land of Israel. B.Wind (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:Golan Regional Council Many of the articles in the above Template are completely unreferenced. One article, Gush Hispin, has been nominated for "speedy delete" because of its lack of sources. I've tagged all the articles I could find, which I believe are more than half the articles in the Template, with "unreferenced" or "nofootnotes." I suspect that many of the sources in question are in Hebrew or Arabic, and could someone please help address this problem? Thanks, AFriedman (talk) 02:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I think that I'm willing to let Gush Hispin be deleted. It merely seems like an informal term used to describe the grouping of localities. In the past, I also opposed the use of the word 'bloc', especially when there was no agreed/published definition on that term (e.g. Ariel bloc). Very low ghits, even in Hebrew. Perhaps merge it to the Golan Heights article or as 'matter of fact' in the separate articles of the localities mentioned. --Shuki (talk) 23:36, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Katriel Katz is almost certainly notable enough to sustain an article on Wikipedia, but is currently lacking one. He was a cabinet secretary in a number of Israeli governments, as well as Consul General in New York and Israel's Russian Ambassador during the six day war. Katz was later expelled from Moscow by Andrei Gromyko. He also served as Ambassador to Poland.

Anyone care to write an article on him? Once this has been done, he can be listed as a notable passenger aboard BOAC Flight 712. Mjroots (talk) 14:36, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Your project uses User:WolterBot, which occasionally gives your project maintenance-related listings.

User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects provides a list, updated daily, of unreferenced living people articles (BLPs) related to your project.

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The unreferenced living people articles related to your project will be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel/Archive 3/Unreferenced BLPs

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Thank you. Okip 08:00, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Update: Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel/Archive 3/Unreferenced BLPs has been created. This list, which is updated by User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects daily, will allow your wikiproject to quickly identify unreferenced living person articles.

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It has been proposed at talk:Yonatan Netanyahu that the article be renamed to Jonathan Netanyahu, at least for the English Wikipedia. Most of the citations and key books quoted use the English spelling. Comments are welcome. --Wikiwatcher1 (talk) 21:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can have a look at this, as it needs some attention from an expert. I am taking it off my watchlist. Thanks. --Crusio (talk) 14:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Unomi and Supreme Deliciousness are slapping occupied cats on everything. Coming to an article near you soon. --Shuki (talk) 21:54, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Bringing meatpuppets Shuki? --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 21:59, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

I had to go look up that one. What are you implying exactly? --Shuki (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Stop your disruptive behaviour by removing worldview category's for your own Israel-pov and stop notifying people similar to you to back you up. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 22:19, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Why does that bother you? That you edit lite-traffic articles and avoid confrontation on the heavily edited ones? Do you know that it is generally good behaviour and sincerity on WP to notify members of a project of issues that might be in their interests. In fact, you yourself signed up as member of this project as did other people who are not necessarily 'pro-Israel'. Do you understand what it is like to openly collaborate and share information? I suggest you join some projects and learn what that is like rather than, or perhaps at least in addition to your war on Israeli articles. --Shuki (talk) 22:29, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

If you really wanted to get other peoples opinions you would also have made a post at WP Palestine or WP Arab World, but you only made it here, to get back up. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 22:51, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Not really. I know perfectly well that they would not want anyone cluttering up their articles with Israeli this and Israeli that. And you still have not added any cats to WP Palestine or WP Arab World articles, so the onus is on you here to back up the newly introduced edits you defending. --Shuki (talk) 23:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Frankly I do not see the problem with the edits - this seems to be a perfectly reasonable categorisation, and certainly not factually incorrect. пﮟოьεԻ 57 08:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

The issue is POV since that user will surely not add that cat to all Arab/Muslim/ex-Syrian/Druze/non-Jewish companies. Anyway, please see the talk page on that winery article, and join the Cfd for that cats. Interesting 'uninvolved' editors adding their views. Enlightening actually.

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 1#Companies in the Israeli-occupied territories
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 1#Category:Companies with economic ties to Israeli-occupied territories

--Shuki (talk) 22:32, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I find it a lapse of AGF to state the I am taking advantage of anything, and I would be happy to add that category to any of the types of companies that you mention, and you yourself would be free to do so. There is no POV involved here apart from that of international law and particularly European Court of Justice which makes precisely such a notable delineation. If international law is considered pov, then so be it, WP:YESPOV. I think that is a reasonable and rational stance for a serious encyclopedia to take. Unomi (talk) 01:09, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

A proposal has been made to rename Israel and the apartheid analogy. Please weigh in at Talk:Israel and the apartheid analogy#Rename proposal - first steps. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 20:19, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello everyone. The article Israel is currently at featured article review, and has been moved to the FARC section. In this section, editors make keep/delist declarations regarding the featured status of the article. Editors from this project are invited to comment on the FARC. Thanks in advance for any comments, Dana boomer (talk) 22:52, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Reasoning: Shin Bet is the 1950's name of the organization. Shabak started as an acronym, but over the time it became the known name of the organization. I placed a renaming proposal here, FYI/C. – Fuzzy – 19:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I have proposed merging Ashkenazi intelligence to Ashkenazi Jews. Weigh in at, Talk:Ashkenazi intelligence. Also in particular, weigh in on one user's points, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ashkenazi_intelligence#More_sociology.2C_less_biology.21 I thought his line of questioning needed more discussion. ScienceApe (talk) 19:40, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

There is an interesting POV dispute at Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement That could really use some extra help.71.237.210.137 (talk) 00:21, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I was looking around at various UN Resolutions to see what the general format/style of such resolutions was generally accepted here at WP. I found the above resolution particularly interesting, because while 194 is certainly has implications and is relevant to Israel, one would never guess it from the info box. The article itself I don't have problems with. The info box on the side is all about Palestine, with a Palestinian flag, main article given 1948 Palestinian Exodus -- it is all Palestine all the time. The info box to my mind is highly slanted. The talk page has just one edit since 2006. I would like to know if anyone here thinks the same way and if so I would like to discuss any changes that might be made to the box. Please feel free to make a note on my talk page. Maybe we could bring it up at IPCollaboration if there is some agreement with my thesis and we have something to offer by way of compromise. Thanks. Stellarkid (talk) 03:55, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I think these kind of templates are often problematic in the way they're used in articles. Another example I would give is the template in Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel. It's fine in that article but it's problematic when it's placed in an article that isn't specifically about rocket attacks. These kind of single issue, visually prominent templates tend to have a negative impact on NPOV compliance in my view. For the rocket attacks template I proposed having a navbox either instead or as an alternative and provided an example. Of course no one is watching that page... Sean.hoyland - talk 04:15, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

A discussion has been started at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration/Current_Article_Issues#General_discussion_on_Israeli-occupied_territories.. Please join in. Unomi (talk) 12:03, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

If you don't join in this discussion, don't be surprised if there is an across-the-board renaming of all sorts of places from "Israel" to "Occupied territories." As far as I-P Collaboration (this is of course a euphemism at best) is concerned there is no argument for anything different. Stellarkid (talk) 15:45, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

A move has began for the changing of the names of certain categories containing the word "Jews" to "Jewish people". Already a changed "slipped" through whereby the Category:American Jews was changed to Category:American Jewish people and a nominations has now been made to change Category:Israeli Jews to Category:Israeli Jewish people. I have proposed that the American category revert to its former and I have opposed the renaming of the Israeli category. The discussion is currently on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. If these changes go through, I believe that they would constitute a precedent for changing all categories with the word "Jews", and possibly the removal of the word from all categories and many article titles. Davshul (talk) 19:50, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, why aren't those category named Category:Jewish Americans and Category:Jewish Israelis? Is there some precedent that says put the country name in front of the religious affiliation? ← George ^talk 21:35, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

There is a response to your comment on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy. Davshul (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The discussion on Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Speedy has been moved down to the "Nominations with objections" list, lower down the page. Davshul (talk) 23:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I saw that, though I didn't really understand the response, or why Jewish Frenchmen is worse than French Jew or French Jewish people. The problem with putting the nationality in front of the religion is that in some cases it can mean something completely different - a Roman Catholic is very different than a Catholic Roman. ← George ^talk 23:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

• The discussion on reverting the category Category:American Jewish people back to Category:American Jews has now been moved to a full CFD (Categories for Discussion). Please add your views here. Davshul (talk) 12:08, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

• A WP Deletion Review (DRV) at Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2010 May 3#Category:Jewish people has now been opened to revert the Category:Jewish People to Category:Jews. Davshul (talk) 10:33, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Who is living in close proximity to Ben Gurion Airport? I have made a photo request for the El Al headquarters located at the airport. If someone has difficulty finding parking near the head office, one could have one person drive and a second person take the photograph from the vehicle window. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I saw the request at Category:Wikipedia requested photographs in Israel but it does not seem accessible to the general public since it is inside the airport compound and you need a good reason to get in the gate. --Shuki (talk) 16:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a sign along the airport compound that marks the entrance to the El Al headquarters? To represent Halliburton's headquarters I took this photo: File:HalliburtonNorthHouston.JPG - it is of the sign at the entrance, not the actual HQ building itself. But this represents the HQ. A photo like the Halliburton one would be sufficient. Another example of a sign photo would be File:Ibmcorporateheadquartersentrance.jpg WhisperToMe (talk) 19:29, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'll see if I have something on my harddrive at home...I try not to post pics I take in Israel due to infighting, but this seems innocuous. --nsaum75^{¡שיחת!‎} 19:32, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, nsaum. In the meantime, if the El Al HQ building has the company logos on it and that side is visible from the public passenger terminal, one could take a photo from inside the airport (if authorities allow it) - Here is an example of this possibility: After I landed in Paris I managed to get a shot of the Air France headquarters while on the grounds of Terminal 2: File:Air France HQ.png WhisperToMe (talk) 19:34, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

From http://www.iaa.gov.il/Rashat/map.aspx?mapView=mitkan&elementId=# I found an approximate location of the El Al offices. Click "Ben Gurion" and one will see a listing of points on a map, including the location of the El Al offices. - Click on the "Ben Gurion Airport" map and one will see a detailed map of Ben Gurion Airport, including the location of the El Al offices - the offices are adjacent to Terminal 1. - The Israeli Airports Authority head office is next to the El Al offices - that would be also a good photo to have. WhisperToMe (talk) 12:34, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Some articles about Israel may not include the Arabic names of the subjects. I started Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Language#Arabic_names_of_some_Israeli_subjects so that contributors can help find the Arabic names of several subjects. WhisperToMe (talk) 23:51, 3 May 2010 (UTC)

Some of the names you inserted might not be the correct official names. I don't think we should use them until they have been verified against an official source. Just my opinion however, if you wish to add Arabic names to articles, feel free to do so, but it's still best to specify where the name is official and where it was translated/transliterated by a Wikipedian. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 14:10, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I try to use official names whenever possible (I.E. for the Mossad I posted a link to the Arabic website as a reference and then asked Wikipedians to type in what Arabic is from the official website) - For some topics (like Israeli cuisine) there aren't any official names. Adam Bishop, who has familiarity with the knowledge, corrected a typo from the official Mossad Arabic website. Also if there is an existing Arabic Wikipedia article about a subject, I typically use the Arabic name from that article. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:40, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

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Your Project's list can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject Israel/Unreferenced BLPs. Currently you have approximately 122 articles to be referenced. Other project lists can be found at User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects/Templates and User:DASHBot/Wikiprojects.

Your assistance in reviewing and referencing these articles is greatly appreciated. If you have any questions, please don't hestitate to ask either at WT:URBLP or at my talk page. Thanks, The-Pope (talk) 17:19, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I have sourced two out of the 122 entries, and partly-sourced another one. It's a daunting task. In any case, how should I go about updating the list? —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 01:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Nothing! That's the great thing about it - the Bot will automagically update it each day at around 0:00 UTC - see here for an example. The-Pope (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

This strikes me as being a coatrack-kind of template, where everything including the kitchen sink is being thrown in. Does anyone think that this should be taken to WP:TfD as an NPOV violation? -- Avi (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely. Poliocretes (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Controversies related to Israel and Zionism has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 20:08, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Please see WT:MILHIST#Empire Comfort where I have raised an issue that members of this WP interested in the history of Israel, particularly its formation and the 1948 Arab-Israeli War may be able to assist with. Mjroots (talk) 06:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if this is the right place, but I wanted to bring to your attention that over at people are questioning the use of yedioth as a reliable source on wikipedia. Momma's Little Helper (talk) 02:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It is the right place, thanks. --Shuki (talk) 20:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

This article needs emergency attention: Harel Skaat is competing in the Eurovision this evening. I noticed that many of the references lead to dead links, and the formatting is terrible. Can someone help?--Geewhiz (talk) 06:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Upgrading Music of Israel and other B-class articles

I believe there is room to reconsider this article for GA status. It is far from perfect, but then again, no articles on Wikipedia are ever perfect. Many references have been added since the article was reviewed in 2007, and it offers quite an extensive view of the subject. On a general note, I think that editors here are being too picky when it comes to upgrading articles. It seems telling that there are only 6 articles that have reached featured status, and very few in the medium/high categories. Looking at other articles on Wikipedia that have passed GA, I think many Israel-related articles are equally worthy - if not much more so. High standards should be applauded, but there is no need to overdo it, to the detriment of the project.--Gilabrand (talk) 08:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

This article is indeed approaching GA quality in terms of content. The only thing I think is lacking is more information on trance/electronic/house, from where some of the biggest international names from Israel have come, yet it's the shortest section. Otherwise the article is good, although for an actual GA nomination I believe it needs serious structure and formatting work. —Ynhockey (Talk) 11:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, it is one of the Israeli articles I have a big problem with especially with regard to the lack of uniformity of style and writing. A lot of seemingly OR too. Besides the small trance section, the 'Hassidic and Orthodox Jewish music' is also entirely undeveloped. --Shuki (talk) 12:21, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I completely agree that the article needs serious cleanup as far as style, structure and consistency go. However, I believe it's in good shape (by comparison) content-wise, covering almost all major points. —Ynhockey (Talk) 01:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The article that is in really bad shape is not this, but Jewish music. We should make that article a priority. It is an embarrassment. --Ravpapa (talk) 10:26, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I have brought the above discussion back from the archive, as WP Israel editors continue to sit on the fence. There are several articles in the B category that could easily be upgraded to GA status. It is a crying shame that only Pallywood-type articles like Muhammad Al-Durrah are promoted and everything else just sits because of a certain overcritical stance in this project that does not exist on the rest of Wikipedia. People, get off your haunches and do something.--Gilabrand (talk) 07:50, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Attention, compulsive archivists: Please do not archive material that is still relevant.--Geewhiz (talk) 06:34, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Considering archiving is done by bot, I'm not sure who that message is aimed at. Anyway, I've reduced auto-archiving rate to 60 days of inactivity; I don't believe discussion rate here justifies quicker archiving than this. Rami R 12:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Gilabrand, I share your frustration at the fact that many important Israel-related articles are not good enough, but editors can't force themselves to be interested in a certain subject. One of the main reasons I came to Wikipedia was to have fun, and doing serious research on a subject I am not interested in is rather difficult in light of that. If you need help with formatting and style however, please feel free to point out the major issues and I will have a look ASAP. If we're on the subject of such articles, other ones that IMO really need work is Internet in Israel and Transport in Israel. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:24, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

where exactly is the afore-mentioned scale? --Sreifa (talk) 16:32, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean this? —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 19:29, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Israeli settlements nableezy - 23:05, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

I have added a proposal. --Shuki (talk) 00:46, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

In the overview section of the article it says "By charter, the unit is forbidden from engaging in Psychological Warfare and from the dissemination of falsified information". To what does "charter" refer? I'd really appreciate if the author of the article or anybody else could give me a source for this because it could prove important for my work. Thanks in advance. 188.195.127.134 (talk) 15:25, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not an expert on Wikipedia, but this article is ridiculous. The entire article is designated to the condemnation of Israeli public relations? Why? Similar articles such as White House Press Secretary talk about the responsibility of the individual. Hasbara basically is the equivalent to a press release in the US, yet it's filled with so much hate. Nothing can be done? —Preceding unsigned comment added by CChips (talk • contribs) 15:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The Yarkon River, which was or has supposedly been polluted, needs a little attention. I've already posted the details on the discussion page. As I'm not sure if anyone (informed) is watching the brief Yarkon River article, excuse me to be double-posting here... especially because the request may require some research, and I assume that people at this project will be more motivated to put such effort in their work than just a couple random Wikipedians. Okay, enough of that, thanks for your help, Ibn Battuta (talk) 02:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I've just tagged this BLP for deletion since the only ref is a dead link (site seems to be inactive) and there's a very shaky claim to notability. If anybody cares to find a good ref/claim to notability they should add them to the article. 69.181.249.92 (talk) 15:37, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this, but I've been working on the Harel Skaat article, and I am requesting a reassessment of the article. Thanks. Hjquazimoto (talk) 02:23, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Are Mount Hermon and Gamla actually nature reserves in Israel? Please share your knowledge on this matter here. I would also appreciate any assistance in expanding and improving this important template. TheCuriousGnome (talk) 10:22, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a proposal, currently here at Speedy renaming relating to the various categories of Israelis (or Israeli people) of foreign descent. My view is that the word "descent" denotes ethnicity and is generally inappropriate with regards to these Israeli categories. The Israelis in question were not ethnic Bulgarian, Poles, Turks, etc. There were generally Jews whose origins were in Bulgaria, Poland, Turkey, etc. I have opposed the current proposed change and have suggested all these categories be renamed using the basis of "Israeli people of XXXian origin". Comments and possible someone taking the issue to a full cfd discussion would be welcome. Davshul (talk) 08:00, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

A Gas company does a seismic survey (I think it was Noble Energy) of a gas field off the coast of Haifa. They say there is a lot of gas for the next few decades of energy and some left over for exporting. Lebanon says it's all theirs or the field extends into its own sea territory.
www.smh.com.au/world/israel-warns-lebanon-over-the-rights-to-new-gasfields-20100625-z9me.html

Lebanon going to pass a bill to start offshore drilling: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=116456#axzz0s79VLaI5

Can we get some maps and maybe some analysis over what the exact borders of the Leviathan gas field are? Here is the map on the Ministry of National Infrastructures website: http://www.mni.gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/D416D03A-BCA1-49D0-8FF3-8A8A3FC71EC1/0/PetroleumRights25_03_10Geogr.jpg

There was an article on the financial website globes.co.il that had a bunch of international law people describing why it was actually in Israel's territory but it's in the archive now and you can only read it if you are a subscriber. It was entitled "Experts dispute Lebanese claim to gas finds". Faaaaaaamn (talk) 03:43, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

It might be a bit premature and WP:CRYSTAL-ish. Seismic was acquired, processed, interpreted and some Tertiary sands prospects were identified in the Rachel (lease 349) and Amit (lease 350) license areas. You can see where the leases are here. They're just prospects at the moment not gas finds, not gas fields with proven reserves. Nothing has been drilled on that prospect yet. The first exploration well won't spud until later this year and they'll need to drill appraisal wells if the initial well finds anything interesting. The exploration leases expire at the end of 2011 so I guess it won't be long. Sean.hoyland - talk 09:12, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

There is a full Cdf discussion here on renaming the approximate 50 subcategories of Category:Israeli people by ethnic or national origin from "Israeli people of XXXian descent" to "Israeli people of XXXian origin". The word "descent" denotes ethnicity and is, I believe, generally inappropriate with regards to these categories. Comments would be welcome. Davshul (talk) 15:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Good day to you all! bringing to your attention that Supreme Deliciousness is renovating on his own that article, the formerly involved editors might want to take a look and have their say in it, cordial greetings, Hope&Act3! (talk) 19:16, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

שלום, It might be of interest to someone that I started articles on the subject of lighthouses in Israel. Several are stubs, while some have a bit more meat. Of course, any help is appreciated, especially if anyone can dig a major source on the subject. The missing articles are mainly since I'm waiting for approval to use some images, so if anyone has any it would also be appreciated. Best regards. --Muhandes (talk) 21:32, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Some eyes are needed on the Syria and Golan Heights. [redacted]Non neutral language and suggestions of 'correct' course of action indicative of WP:CANVAS Pantherskin (talk) 10:50, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Note: Message repeatedly removed by User:Supreme Deliciousness. Pantherskin (talk) 11:45, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Additional: I did not retract the message above and I will not. I stand by this message and my summary of what reliable sources say, and by that two editors are demonstrable not interested in NPOV. Pantherskin (talk) 12:49, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

This article is in dire need of a major revision. it is written to support the thesis that Jews lead the Israel lobby in the US. I just made a minor correciton to add Christians United for Israel which is, after all, by far the largest US pro-Israel lobby. But it still needs a lot of work to correspond in any degree to the reality that Christian pro-Israel lobbying in the US predates Jewish pro-Israel lobbying by decades and Christian support has always been the dominant force in shaping American policies towards the Middle East. I'll get back to it, but Please come help.AMuseo (talk) 18:25, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree - but it's a tough article and I'm afraid to mess with it. "Comparison to other lobbies" and "criticism" sections could easily go or at least be cut in half. They are totally unnecessary and add nothing to the article. Stephen Zunes and the Nation are not the most balanced sources. I know several historians such as Benny Morris were quite upset that American academics used his research to manufacture claims of an insidious "Israel lobby." A recent article in the WS talks about the motivations behind the evangelical movement and its support for Israel in US political system. I think the heavy reliance on John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt is problematic, considering several of their statements are simply false. In background they are cited with saying Israel is the "largest" recipient of annual foreign aid since 1976. they make a comparison to post-WWII reconstruction. According to the DOD the largest recipient of direct military aid are Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, the statement should be clarified explaining how aid is actually delivered, what year it began, and how much received pear year. It gives the impression that the lobby somehow created the movement of government-aid when in reality it was just a part of post-Yom Kippur geopolitics, and practically no Israeli-lobby movement existed until the 1980s. Much of the article's content should be moved to Israel – United States relations because it mixes up state relations with lobby politics. Wikifan12345 (talk) 23:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

I've had a major hand in writing, editing, and tempering this article. It used to be much worse before I put it on my watch list. It used to rely almost completely on Mearsheimer and Walt. Now it relies a lot (perhaps too much) on the work of Mitchell Bard. Bard's analysis seems surprisingly sober to me considering how close it comes to the "Israel lobby has too much power" thesis. Bard's "reaching across the aisle" in this respect might actually be a good thing since he is usually associated with the StandWithUs crowd. --GHcool (talk) 16:17, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't read it before, but it's still pretty bad. The problem is that it reads as though Jews are the Israel Lobby, when in reality support for Israel is very strong among many segments of American opinion. The non-Jewish informal lobby and the informal and formal Christian lobbies need to be far better covered to make a balanced article.AMuseo (talk) 18:35, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I hadn't read it before (AMuseo). Maybe, if you stick to the encyclopedia form, it will be OK. -DePiep (talk) 19:13, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Please note that there is currently discussion here on a proposal to delete the article: 2010 Israeli Air Force Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion crash. Davshul (talk) 09:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

As a general note for the future, a better place to notify users of Israel-related AfDs is WP:DISRAEL. --Andrensath (talk | contribs) 10:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

This is slightly off-topic, but I want to point out that I have created several new articles focusing on all the wonderful new recreational facilities that are being built in Gaza. Roots Club, Gaza Mall, As-Sadaka Gaza Olympic Swimming Pool, Crazy Water Park. I do wish that I had photos that could decorate these new pages. Also, I am having trouble at the article Crazy Water Park with a user named RolandR who keeps removing material from a well-sourced article in The Telegraph explaining that these facilities are thought to be being constructed by Hamas to satisfy its cash-flow needs. Advice?AMuseo (talk) 14:25, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Hamas business ventures describes several other new for-profit amusement parks that could be made into articles.AMuseo (talk) 15:46, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

In response to the original query, I would recommend asking for photos at WT:PALESTINE. With respect to your dispute with RolandR, you might want to try WP:3O or WP:RfC.

As a suggestion, if one article suggests Hamas might own a business, you should avoid making vague statements like "is believed to be". Instead, attribute the statement: "According to The Independent..." — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 17:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

About photographs of the places, I second Malik Shabazz's recommendation to go to WP:Palestine, although I am not sure that anyone there is actually from Gaza. Maybe some fair use pictures (I'm sure there are plenty) can be included in the more important instances. —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

At the suggestion of Ynhockey, this issue has been made the subject of a new section. The following are the comments moved down from the previous section: Davshul (talk) 22:21, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

AMuseo had placed at least one of article on Gaza in the New articles page of WikiProject Israel and it had been removed by another user for the reason that it was "not located in Israel". I'm not sure whether it should be a requirement that the subject of articles should be physically situated in Israel (without, at this stage, getting involved in defining the actual boundaries of Israel) for the article to be included on the WikiProject Israel New Articles page, if the matter is of general Israeli interest (as developments is Gaza are). Perhaps others may wish to comment. Davshul (talk) 14:50, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ynhockey wrote: I have expressed my opinion on this issue time and again, that I do not believe that articles about Gaza and West Bank Palestinians are generally not within the scope of the project. However, other opinions are welcome (please start a new section for this as it's an important issue). —Ynhockey ^(Talk) 21:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

A bit hypocritical to remove articles listed at WP:ISRAEL, since the same editors claim that Israel still 'occupies' these places. There is a lot of overlap of articles, and there are other things to argue about than this. Am, sorry I can't, I have a location topic ban now. --Shuki (talk) 00:05, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Shuki. West Bank/Gaza are considered "occupied" by parts of the UN and mainstream rights groups. I don't think topics pertinent to the Israeli presence is out of the scope of this project.Wikifan12345 (talk) 02:02, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Isn't the question really whether articles can be within scope of more than one WikiProject ? The answer to that one seems pretty obvious. I would question whether it matters. Also, the Israel article (which could be viewed as a scope defining article I suppose) contains information about areas outside of the green line that are regarded as occupied by Israel by many sources (including those pesky people running the Supreme Court of Israel in the case of the West Bank). Western Sahara related articles are supported by both WikiProject Morocco and WikiProject Western Sahara which makes sense at least to me. I think the more important issue that needs addressing is whether editors are capable of contributing to articles about the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, the IDF, Hamas etc etc in a policy compliant way or whether their personal views color their edits to such an extent that it becomes a burden for other editors and the project in general. This is the kind of edit + burden for other editors I am referring to. That applies to both sides of the conflict of course and whether an article is within scope of a particular WikiProject won't make any difference. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:18, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hamas isn't a terrorist organization? Questioning the ability for a collection of editors to follow guidelines before they even edit an article IMO isn't assuming good faith. The same could be said for any member of WikiProject Palestine. Wikifan12345 (talk) 05:43, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Hamas are many things according to many sources. One of those many things is that they are a terrorist organization according to X,Y,Z. I question the ability of every single editor (including me) editing in the I-P conflict area everytime I see an edit because it's a messed up battleground with much lameness. And we concur that it applies to both sides of the conflict as I said. It's not a question of good faith. I have no doubt whatsoever that all sorts of policy non-compliant edits are made in good faith from the perspectove of the editor. I don't care whether they are in good faith or not. It doesn't matter. Content matters. Sean.hoyland - talk 05:54, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Not everything has to revolve around politics. It's neither about geography nor about occupation, it's merely about relevance. Locations in the Palestinian territories pertinent to Israel should be in the project, say Joseph's Tomb or Netzarim, but what has the Gaza mall do to with Israel? Israel neither built it nor do Israelis shop there. Just because it is somehow related through possible connections to the Hamas does not require that it appear on WikiProject Israel. Poliocretes (talk) 07:16, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

A mall built with Israeli-supplied concrete and shelved with Israeli-escorted luxury goods? Wikifan12345 (talk) 08:00, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Did you know that both the airbases at Ramon and Ovda were built by American funding and American contractors and house nothing but American aircraft types? And yet, both have no place in American wikiprojects. What about all the malls in Israel featuring Italian marble and selling Italian produce? You're casting too wide a net. Poliocretes (talk) 08:32, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't follow what you mean Wikifan. Are you saying that Israel is helping to rebuild Gaza at their own expense and therefore it is within scope of this wikiproject ? Sean.hoyland - talk 08:38, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Polio, hardly a fair analogy. These malls are not being created with resources imported from Israeli companies. The government of Israel is escorting the resources into the heart of Gaza. In fact, Hamas' ability as a government to earn large amounts of cash has been created by Israel's-imposed blockade, enabling the organization to tax materials coming out of the tunnels and then using the funds to buy out private businesses. This is made even easier because Hamas' only real expense are employee salaries, which is totally covered by Iran/Saudi Arabia. And then there is the fact that Gaza is "occupied" by Israel according to the UN. I don't want this to turn into a general discussion - perhaps we should keep the issue on an case-by-case basis. I think most editors know when something Palestine-related (fashion) has squat to do with Israel. Wikifan12345 (talk) 13:24, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Poliocretes. Every article about Gaza and the West Bank doesn't fall within the scope of this WikiProject, although some do. Gaza Mall is a good example of an article that falls outside the project's scope. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:43, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Sean, if you take the time to read the original proposal for the 'disengagement', it says that Israel will continue to support the Arabs there and also improve the economy. The disengagement was a lie. --Shuki (talk) 23:22, 29 July 2010 (UTC)