Talk:Israeli occupation of the West Bank/Archive 1

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This is currently at 162 kB of readable prose, so it will likely need to be trimmed down as child articles are created for each of the aspects covered per WP:SUMMARY. In the meantime I might try to tighten a few things up. nableezy - 23:12, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Unsolicited comments

Clearly a ton of work went into this article and I want to thank the editors who created it for a tremendous effort. There's a wealth of content and sources here (682 citations!) on aspects of this conflict that deserve encyclopedic coverage.

Some (well, many... sorry) suggestions for both condensing and expanding this article:

1. Split it up, as noted above. Many if not all of the current sections deserve stand-alone articles. The main article should act as a guide to the reader from which to navigate, and the existing prose should be summaries of the sub-articles.
2. Add an overview/summary--more than the lead, or maybe not. But the reader should be able to gain a basic understanding in a reasonably short time of what "the Israeli occupation of the West Bank" is, even (especially) if they know nothing about it before reading this article.
3. Separate basic factual and historical content from thematic content. There should be sections spelling out the who/what/when/where/how, and separate sections addressing the "why," and topics such as causes, features, impact, perceptions, etc. As it is written now, the chronology is told along with the thematic content, and that makes it more difficult to gain an understanding of the basic facts (especially to someone not well-versed in the history such as myself). It's a lot of content in what I would describe as a book-like, sequential, chaptered format, as opposed to an online-encyclopedia-like, hyperlinked/indexed format, where a reader can jump around more easily.
4. Add a section that explains the geography, with ample maps, showing the borders, and other important features, preferably multiple ones for different key time periods. Probably a set for West Bank and a separate set for Jerusalem. Possibly a map showing where the West Bank is situated in the larger area. (I hope there are maps available for use.)
5. Add a section that explains who the main players are. The governments, parties, organizations, nearby/involved countries, etc.
6. Add a timeline section that just lists the major events with dates, for the reader's reference when they read other sections.
7. Add a chronology section that tells the history (expands the timeline, in prose), with subsections by decade or perhaps from one major event to the next, however might be best to organize it
8. Then have the series of thematic sections (essentially the existing sections discussing impact on agriculture, tourism, asymmetric war, etc.). These should be summarized with links to "main article" sub-articles.
9. The first thematic section should be called Causes. Easier said than written, but it's a necessary section.
10. The next group of thematic sections should be descriptive of the key features of the conflict, e.g., asymmetric war, legal status, also a section describing the major official "rules" or policies or restrictions imposed (for example, the changes to the types of goods that have been allowed or not allowed by different blockades over the years, changes to rules about movement, curfews, etc.)
11. There should be a group of sections about the relations between the major players/organizations/areas/what-have-you, and how they've changed. E.g., West Bank-Gaza, PLO-PA, Israel-US, Israel-Jordan, Jordan-West Bank, etc.
12. Then a group of sections about impact (on tourism, on agriculture, etc.), again, summaries with links to main articles
13. Last, a group of sections about perspectives/criticisms, etc., from various parties
14. You didn't think I was gonna write this whole long thing and not bring up NPOV, right? :-) I agree with the NPOV tag as it stands now, but I think the article structure should be adjusted, and the sub-articles spun off, and then any NPOV concerns discussed on the talk pages of those sub articles.

Overall, there is so much content to this article--and even more to the topic--that it's too much for most readers to read from start to finish. I think for most readers, they will want an overview, and then the ability to drill down on one aspect, and then come back to the overview, and drill down on another aspect, etc.

I apologize for the TLDRness of this, but it was a substantial article and I had a lot to say. Thank you again to the creators and to any poor soul still reading this. Levivich (talk) 07:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I dont think anybody can claim TLDR for your comment if youve taken the time to actually read through this article. I will go through these suggestions as time permits, but by all means be bold!. nableezy - 07:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

For the record, I understand why somebody might claim the article is "POV", though I emphatically disagree. The article covers an uncomfortable topic with regards to Israel, including actions that it has received international condemnation for repeatedly over the last 50 years or so. But it is a topic that is very much treated as its own topic by reliable sources, and unless somebody can actually demonstrate, with sources of course, how any part of the article is POV by the Wikipedia definition, then I dont know how I or anybody else are supposed to do anything about it. nableezy - 07:40, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the invite, but I'm new here and not yet extended. Even for noncontroversial changes, this being Wikipedia, I'm not risking making any edits. I'll come back and be bold later. Also, I want to clarify (if it wasn't obvious) that the new sections I'm suggesting above could likely just be summaries of other articles (or sections of other articles) on those topics, which are already written, e.g. the timeline can be taken from the main I-P timeline article, the maps on other articles are good (maybe cropped to focus on WB?).

I really do think the article is too long to have a productive conversation about POV, and it should be broken up and restructured as I said above. POV isn't just about what's in the article, it's also about what's not in the article. Since you're asking, one example I noticed is in the section The language of conflict, there is little if any discussion of Palestinian use of language, even though that's discussed in the sources cited. But as I said above, I think it'd be better to modify the structure first and then discuss any POV concerns. Cheers! Levivich (talk) 08:33, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Neutrality

This article is very biased to be anti-Israel. It should be covering the point of view of the Israeli government or ts allies. I don't expect coverage of Palestinian occupation of Israel or Jordanian occupation of the East Bank. However historic Jordanian occupation of West Bank is also highly relevant to this topic. This would make the article even larger though! My POV tag is in relation to this. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: What exactly do you mean regarding a Palestinian occupation of Israel or a Jordanian occupation of the East Bank (aka Jordan). Jordan does not occupy Jordan, that doesnt make any sense to me, just as it wouldnt make any sense to say Israel occupies Tel Aviv. The Palestinians do not occupy Israel, where exactly is that coming from? We already have an article on the Jordanian occupation and then annexation of the West Bank, that is Jordanian annexation of the West Bank. As far as biased against Israel, in what way? Israel's positions on the topic are included with due weight accorded to them. Specifically, what in the article is biased against Israel? Just using the phrasing that overwhelming majority of sources use regarding the occupation? nableezy - 03:57, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I concur with Graeme Bartlett, that the article is highly biased is uses a very selective set of sources and topics. Attacks on Israel from the West Bank (both prior and post 1967), and post-1967. The Palestinian failure to build a functioning non-violent state following Oslo is also skirted around. Icewhiz (talk) 06:07, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

How are attacks on Israel from the West Bank relevant to the occupation itself? Especially before the occupation? You have any sources that connect the topics? What does the so-called "Palestinian failure to blah" have to do with the occupation? This article covers the occupation, a topic that is given a huge amount of attention in scholarship, which this article uses extensively. Id like specific examples of what is POV here. If you can provide sources that connect any of the topics you feel are not given space here by all means. But the idea that this article, with 682 footnotes cited to 332 sources, most of them books published by top tier university presses and peer-reviewed journal articles, is selective strikes me as astonishing. Have you even gone through the sources? Not liking what the sources say is not the same thing as being "biased". Specific examples of POV issues with sources showing what POV is not properly presented or is given undue weight please. Very specifically, what would you like to add, and what sources would you be using? What would you like to remove, and why? nableezy - 06:45, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

And for the record Graeme, the Jordanian occupation is covered in this article in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank#The West Bank in 1967. nableezy - 06:48, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

This is a widely written about topic area. While it is certainly impressive that this 370K article with indeed, 682 references was placed in main-space - the POV issue here is in the choice of sources (which mainly reflect a certain POV camp) and cherrypicking from within those sources.Icewhiz (talk) 07:58, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Baldly made assertion without any sources or examples. You cannot just say "POV". You disliking what the sources say does not make them POV. Again, specific examples of POV issues with sources showing what POV is not properly presented or is given undue weight please. Very specifically, what would you like to add, and what sources would you be using? What would you like to remove, and why? nableezy - 14:22, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Come on, don't be coy, you know damn well this article is heavily POV. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 16:04, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

In what way. Again, it dealing with a topic you find uncomfortable does not in any way make it "POV". nableezy - 16:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd say that attacks prior to 1967 originating from the West Bank are very relevant as historical background. For example, World War I has a section on background. What led up to the conflict occuring the way it did. I'd say that there are plenty of sources that attribute the Israeli decision to maintain military control of the West Bank to the historical background of it being used to launch attacks on Israeli civilians. That would be a major factor in the decision-making process - indeed, there was the offer immediately after the six day war where the West Bank except for Jerusalem would be returned to Jordan in exchange for a peace deal. Suggesting that a hostile presence in the area was unacceptable to the Israeli leadership. I don't have time to find sources for everything, but I virtually guarantee that they exist. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 09:42, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I'd say that there are plenty of sources that attribute the Israeli decision to maintain military control of the West Bank to the historical background of it being used to launch attacks on Israeli civilians. That would be a major factor in the decision-making process

there was the offer immediately after the six day war where the West Bank except for Jerusalem would be returned to Jordan in exchange for a peace deal.

I don't have time to find sources for everything, but I virtually guarantee that they exist.

History is written by reading sources, then providing a grounded account. It is not written by guessing what might have happened, or what one vaguely recalls reading somewhere and then hoping sources out there will confirm one’s impressions. Stating that the desultory attacks were on ‘civilians’ is a give-away counterfactual POV. This article's sourcing has been pared down to the absolute minimum. It could be easily expanded in each section to bloat out to three times this length. I advise against doing so. This is what would happen, minimally, perhaps as a footnote, however if the article were adjusted to clarify what two editors claim is an unsatisfactory point in the background.

Pre 1967. Israeli and Jordanian intelligence through the Jordan–Israel Mixed Armistice Commission worked together to prevent guerilla infiltrations from the West Bank, before 1967, and from Jordan afterwards. Israel was fully aware that whatever attacks might be launched from the West Bank, they were done with only Syrian support, and that Hussein’s army monitored and cracked down on any WB fedayeen militants attempting to infiltrate and operate within Israel. Responsibility for the ostensible casus belli of Samu, a landmine exploding an Israeli jeep on November 11, was Syrian. Israel’s reprisal at Samu, for geostrategic reasons, punished Jordan, which it knew to be uninvolved, in order to avoid escalation into a broader crisis that would draw in both Egypt and the Soviet Union were Syria itself attacked. The assault on Samu almost ruined Hussein, and was regarded as a major Israeli strategic mistake for destabilizing his monarchy, though Golda Meir, among others before and after her, had gone on record in 1958 as stating that if he were overthrown, Israel would immediately seize the West Bank. Israel never promised to return the West Bank. Secret talks did take place in November 1967 beween Moshe Sasson and West Bank dignitaries on one part, and between Yaakov Herzog and Hussein in London over an Israeli proposal to give back part of the West Bank. Nothing came of them. The overwhelming thrust of Israeli opinion (71%) was to keep it, and the Israeli cabinet could never agree on what exactly might be restored to Hussein.

References

References

'Early in Hussein’s reign, attacks initiated from the West Bank became a political liability for the young king, with Israel retaliating massively on each occasion. These fedayeen forays, funded by Syria as Israel generally understood, were destabilizing for Jordan. To cope with such incidents both governments exchanged intelligence through the Jordan–Israel Mixed Armistice Commission.'

Bunch, Clea Lutz (January 2008). "Strike at Samu: Jordan, Israel, the United States, and the Origins of the Six-Day War" (PDF). 32 (1). Diplomatic History : 55–76. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Invalid |ref=harv (help)

'The next challenge Israel had to confront was attacks by Fatah guerillas who acted independently of the PLO. .Fatah’s general strategy was to drag the Arab startes into war with Israel by stoking the fires along the borders. It tried to use all the confrontational states as staging bases for the operations against Israel, but Syria was the only country that gave the Fatah fighters assistance and encouragement. The Egyptian authorities firnly prevented Fatah from operating against Israel from the Gaza Strip and Sinai. Jordanian opposition to Fatah was even firmer, but it was not always possible to prevent small units from crossing the border into Israel.'

Shlaim, Avi (2015) [2000]. The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Penguin UK. ISBN 978-0-141-97678-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Golda Meir ne semble pas avoir compris que cela concernait aussi le projet de s’emparer de la totalité ou de la plus grande partie de la Cisjordanie en cas de chute de la monarchie jordanienne dont elle a évoqué le principe avec des différents interlocuteurs.’

(In November 1967 just before the Samu attack) ‘Le gouvernement jordanien multiplie les mesures de précaution en Cisjordanie et lance une nouvelle compagne d’arrestations dans les milieux nationalistes, mais le Fatah dispose maintenant d’une vraie base locale lui permettant d’agir. Le 11 novembre, un camion militaire israelien saute sur une mine, faisant 3 morts et 6 blessés. L’affaire se déroule à quelque kilometres de distance de la ligne d’armistice à la hauteur de Hébron. On attend a des représailles contre la Syrie. Mais Eshkol et Rabin ne veulent pas créer une crise majeure qui impliquerait l’Égypte et l’Union soviétique. Pour esprimer leur “retenue”, ils décident de frapper la Jordanie pour la pousser à renforcer sa répression des activités palestiniennes, toute en signifiant aux autres pays arabs la puissance de feu israélienne . . L’événement provoque une quasi-insurrection de la Cisjordanie, la population accusant la monarchie hachémite d’être incapable de la protéger.’

Laurens, Henry (2007). La question de Palestine: 1947-1967, L'accomplissement des propheties. Fayard. ISBN 978-2-213-63358-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

'In 1967 Glubb wrote that ‘ever since her repulse by the Jordan army in 1948, Israel had longed for an opportunity to overrun the remaining Arab part of Palestine, but as long as Jordan was the friend of Britain and the United States and offered her no pretext, Israel could not move.’ This view of Israel was shared by Jordan’s decision-makers who were convinced that Israel’s leaders had never given up hope that one day the whole of historical Palestine would belong to the Jews.'

Mutawi, Samir A. (2002). Jordan in the 1967 War. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-52858-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Post 1967

’Israel’s capture of the West Bank resulted in an influx of 300,000 Palestinian refugees into the East Bank, bringing the total number of refugees in Jordan’s care to 8750,000. ..The immediate task of the government was to settle them as quickly as possible . .With the help of UNWRA, by the winter of 1967 the refugees had been resettled in temporary camps in Amman and Jerash. Eleven permanent camps were later built to house the refugee population.. However, the Jordanian government’s failure to find a permanent solution to their problem, and Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank, made these camps fertile grounds for recruitment to the fedayeen movement. In a short time the camps were virtually military establishments and in the winter of 1967 Palestinian fedayeen began to cross the Jordan River to the West Bank to attack Israeli settlements and military posts. The fedayeen were supported by Egypt asnd Syria, although neither of these countries allowed them to operate from their own territory. The Israelis responded to the guerilla attacks with reprisal raids in the form of air attacks and artillery shelling of Jordanian army positions, border towns and villages. (editor's note 'collective punishment) The Jordanian government had initially been against fedayeen actions because of the grave consequences this would have for the citizens of the West Bank. However, popular pressure led to a reversal of this decision, but Israeli reprisals and the lawless activities of some of the popular Palestinian organizations eventually made a government clampdown inevitable . .By 1970 the use of mobile patrols, pursuit tactics and an electronic infiltration barrier had successfully put an end to fedayeen infiltration into the occupied terrritories from Jordan.'

.

'And regarding the West Bank and the Kingdom of Jordan, the proposal said not a word. Were security the only issue, Israel could also have offered Jordan a pullback in return for peace, demilitarization, and border adjustments. But this piece of occupied territory was a lost, longed-for part of the Land of Israel.'

For complete details see Raz, Avi (2012). The Bride and the Dowry: Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-18353-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

For a snap summary of the scholarship on why Israel did not, contrary to the myth you mention, offer to return the West Bank see Gershom, Gorenberg (7 May 2012). No, Israel Didn't Offer to Trade the West Bank for Peace in 1967. The Daily Beast. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)Nishidani (talk) 21:12, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Ive requested specific examples of what people find to be "POV" in this article. I have only gotten a vague wave towards supposed deficiencies with no specific examples or sources. As such I am removing the tag, as no discussion about supposed POV issues seems to be occurring. nableezy - 03:29, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Ping

@Graeme Bartlett: I'm quite curious about your response to the above. Since you placed a POV tag on the article you certainly owe everyone here an explanation (possible backed up with sources?) for your quite strange and unorthodox claims which at least in part seem to me to be drawn out of thin air. Please elaborate and don't hold back in teaching all of us for our educational benefit. Sincerely appreciative for any insight you can give, --TMCk (talk) 23:05, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 5 December 2018

Change wording of "It was a biblical site, moreover, they claimed, though it excavations only yielded Byzantine ruins" to "It was a biblical site, moreover, they claimed, though excavations only yielded Byzantine ruins" Frobird (talk) 21:29, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

done, thanks! nableezy - 21:34, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

More problematical editing

Icewhiz challenges by his excisions the following RS.

• (a) Imseis, Ardi (Autumn 2000). "Review: Law, Reality, and the Oslo 'Peace' Process". Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 20 (3): 469–476. JSTOR 20468333. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (b)Rivlin, Paul (2010). The Israeli Economy from the Foundation of the State through the 21st Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-49396-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (c) ICG (20 December 2012). Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem (PDF). International Crisis Group. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• (d) *Malki, Riad (2000). "The Physical Planning of Jerusalem". In Maʻoz, Moshe; Nusseibeh, Sari (eds.). Jerusalem: Points Beyond Friction, and Beyond. Brill. pp. 25–63. ISBN 978-9-041-18843-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

With the deletion of text from (c) and (d) and the sources themselves from the bibliography, no account is given but meaningless assertions of opinion in edit summaries. If what to any passing eye qualifies as RS doers not meet your approval, preemptive removal is abusive. -Nishidani (talk) 16:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• I haven't reviewed these and express no opinion, but I ask you to please tone down your comments. It is not helpful to accuse people of being "abusive" or biased. If you disagree with the edit, comment on the edit and the prose; don't accuse the editor of wrongdoing for making an edit with which you disagree. This is already a contentious area, it doesn't help to escalate the drama with invective. Just argue the content, not the editor, please. WP:AGF Levivich (talk) 16:45, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Brill isnt the publisher, but that does not make the source "propaganda". I am reverting the edits as they have no justification besides an unsubstantiated claim that they are "propaganda". nableezy - 17:28, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Second example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Misrepresentation of source - no "must be" - and source itself is misrepresented (e.g. not published by Brill). Author is Palestinian propaganda minister who civil engineering academic background is irrelevant to the subject matter. 2000 Masterplan off topic in territory. The subsequent paragraph is a WP:SYNTH off of Malki whom himself is unreliable.)

(a)There is zero misrepresentation of the source, there is zero WP:SYNTH so this is a false edit summary. Icewhiz removed:

Israel then disbanded the elected Arab municipal council, transferring services like electricity supply from Palestinian to Israeli companies, and a ministerial decision established a policy that the ratio of Jews to Palestinians must henceforth be 76 to 24, , {{sfn|Malki|2000|pp=25–28}}</blockquote>

The source states:

’Complementary to this move was the disbanding of the elected municipal council in East Jerusalem. . .Services such as electricity which were provided by Palestinian companies were discontinued and moved to Israeli companies as a simple dictate of Israeli sovereignty over the whole city. . . Its first decree was to declare the need to preserve a demographic ratio of 76 Israelis to 24 Palestinians.

(i) Icewhiz claimed there was a 'Misrepresentation of source', for my writing must be in paraphrasing a ministerial decree that established as policy that the demographic ratio in Jerusalem of Israelis to Palestinians is set at 76/24. Policy guidelines established what will be implemented. A ministerial decree setting a demographic proportion to be observed in the future can be paraphrased as 'must' (Tovi Fenster 2004 pp.95-96 and others note that this was maintained by planning decisions right through to the early 2000s) but it would perhaps be better construed as 'will be'. All Icewhiz needed to do was change the verb to reflect that preference. He didn't. He sought a pretext for removal of the whole passage.

(ii) Icewhiz states that it is 'source misrepresentation' to write that the publishers are Brill and not Kluwer Law International. Almost universally editors who detect such as slip (Brill is the publisher given at google books here) simply change Brill to, say, Kluwer. To charge the editor with misrepresenting a source because he got the publisher wrong is absurd. That is not source misrepresentation (i.e. content manipulation) it is a careless piece of trivia, easily emended.

(iii)Riyad al-Maliki is dismissed as unreliable because, for Icewhiz, he is (a) a Palestinian Propaganda Minister. He happens to be the PA Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, and briefly held the post as Minister of Justice and Minister of Information earlier.(b)he has a civil engineering background. This is nonsense. Civil Engineering consists of dealing urban infrastructure. His MSs from New York Technical University in 'Transportation, Urban Planning and Engineering'. He taught the topic for 15 years at Birzeit University, and his appropriately titled (for this section) paper, ‘The Physical Planning of Jerusalem’ is perfectly w2ithin his professional remit, was written before he assumed he political posts mentioned above and his expertise is implicitly acknowledged by the fact his paper was published in a reliable source by Sari Nusseibeh and Moshe Ma'oz in a specialized volume on precisely this topic, one which is cited by Jerusalem academic experts in Israel like TAU's Tovi Fenster and Bar-Ilan University's Menachem Klein. Peer recognition determines RS adequacy, not editor’s opinionizing. If one doesn't like it one takes it to the RS board. True, the source is a Palestinian, one of two Palestinians of international distinction Icewhiz has removed. But one's ethnicity is not a reason for being 'eliminated'.

The removal was obviously polemical for the edit summary is completedly fictitious with no grounds in policy.Nishidani (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

But Levivich, that was abusive. Icewhiz removed, on the basis of the publisher being wrong in the citation, entire paragraphs and in fact other citations he made no comment on. He claimed it a misrepresentation of the source when the prose said a ministerial decision established a policy that the ratio of Jews to Palestinians must henceforth be 76 to 24. What the source says is Its first decision was to declare the demographic ratio of 76 Jews to 24 Palestinians as policy. If that isnt an abuse I dont know what is. (And google books showed the publisher as BRILL, effectively calling somebody a liar for bringing that error here is, well, filled with invective, isnt it?) nableezy - 17:37, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Third example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Wrong publisher, propaganda. I.e.

Icewhiz removed from the bibliography the source for (2) above. Again, one is not supposed to excise reliable sources on a hunch or on the grounds that a slip in publisher attribution is invalidating. To the contrary editors who note slips are obliged to bring editors' attention to them or correct them, not use them as pretexts for wiping out RS. There is no way an RSN board would endorse the idea that Malki and the work citing his paper is 'unreliable'.Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Fourth example of meaningless, pretextual or false edit summaries accompanying removal of RS.

Advocacy, and off topic in this section

The passage removed was

An International Crisis Group report of 2012 described the effects of Israeli policies: cut off from trade with the West Bank by the Separation Barrier, denied political organization – which Israel's counter-terrorism agency includes as "political subversion" – by the closure of the PLO's Orient House, it is an "orphan city" hemmed in by flourishing Jewish neighbourhoods. With local construction blocked, the Palestinian neighbourhoods have become slums, where even the Israeli police will not venture except for security reasons, so that criminal businesses have thrived. {{sfn|ICG|2012|pp=i–ii,1}}

He also removed from the bibliography the source.

ICG (20 December 2012). Extreme Makeover? (II): The Withering of Arab Jerusalem (PDF). International Crisis Group. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

I.e. false edit summary. The International Crisis Group’s paper cannot be dismissed as ‘advocacy’. It has specialists do field work, summarize scholarship, assess a conflict, and provide policy options, like many other eminent sources, such as the World Bank used here. That particular report drew directly on Menachem Klein The Shift: Israel-Palestine from Border Struggle to Ethnic Conflict, Hurst Publishers, 2010 esp on. p.33.

East Jerusalem, disconnected from its natural hinterland by Jewish settlements and the Separation Barrier (which here takes the form of a wall), has become a slum. Many of its inhabitants find succor by supporting extreme Islamic movements. . East Jerusalem poverty and slums are breeding grounds for criminals, a fact that actually benefits Israeli authorities. East Jerusalem residents claim that Israel offers immunity to criminal gangs in exchange for their collaboration and provision of intelligence. In 2002, Faisal Husseini, East Jerusalem’s leading political leader, died, shortly before Israel shut down his Orient House, which served as the unofficial headquarters of the PLO in the city. Since then, East Jerusalem has lacked political leadership and institutions.

I preferred to keep the bibliography lighter and gave the more moderate analysis in the International Crisis Group report. If you didn’t like that you could have used its source, Menachem Klein who is far more dramatic. Either way, the edit summary was spurious, and the material should not have been removed..

Secondly in removing the source from the bibliography you left stranded two other footnotes nos.147,318 which, if the reader clicks on them, are dead. Thus your edit maimed the sourcing system. Again, this is thoroughly slipshod editing. In any sensible world, this would be a reportable behavioural problem.Nishidani (talk) 17:56, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Fifth example.

Introductory paragraph of anti-PLO criticism has no place prior to describing what area-C is

Misleading again. It deals with a document signed by the PLO with Israel concerning the West Bank, the major part of which dealt with Area C.

The "Letters of Mutual Recognition" accompanying the "Israel-PLO Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements" (the DOP), signed in Washington on 13 September 1993, provided for a transitional period not exceeding five years of Palestinian interim self-government in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. {{sfn|Rivlin|2010|p=159}} Major critics of these arrangements, headed by Raja Shehadeh, argue that the PLO had scarce interest or competence in the legal implications of what it was signing.{{efn|"On the Palestinian side there seems to be an apparent lack of interest in law, legal confusion and very serious lacunae in the laws passed after the agreements with Israel were concluded". {{sfn|Imseis|2000|p=475}}}}

Again Icewhiz have wiped out information that notes Israel and Palestinian authorities agreed to a transtional period for the West Bank, of which Area C is the major part. (Preamble and Article XI among other things)

That accord dealt with Area C, and was bitterly criticized by experts in the West Bank. Rivlin the source (again unaccountably removed) states what every one knows, and a reliable tertiary source notes that the arrangement was criticized by a West Bank lawyer of distinction, who went into details which I did not add for reasons of space, as to precisely why the PLO didn’t understand the implications of what it undersigned re Area C (Raja Shehadeh From Occupation to Interim Accords: Israel And the Palestinian Territories, BRILL, 1997 pp.37ff. I preferred the tertiary source summary. If one wants greater clarity one just asks. Talk pages are where problems are resolved, especially if other editors don't even know, as per above, what the problem might be.Nishidani (talk) 18:14, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• al-Maliki, the PA information minister, is not a source that should be used without attribution. al-Maliki also does not use "must be" which implies active measures. On top of al-Maliki we have an improper SYNTH of sources - tying a stmt from al-Maliki into a therefore from another source. ICG is an advocacy group. Random anti-PLO criticism (but no praise, nor criticism of Israel) for Oslo is just advancing a POV when presented without other viewpoints. And finally - this whole mess is simply offtopic in the territory sub-heading. As much of this POVFORK article - the various sections lack coherence or sticking to the topic at hand, and venture to making various POV stmts and commentary inline with a certain POV.Icewhiz (talk) 18:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

The book is edited by Sari Nusseibeh and Moshe Ma'oz and published by a reputable publisher. It is a reliable source, but if you would like to challenge it then by all means WP:RSN is thataway. Repeating the same false statement (POVFORK) does not magically transform a false statement into a true one. The dishonesty about "must be" when he says established as a matter of a policy is just that, dishonest, and in any regard is emphatically not a reason to excise the material entirely. You also failed to address the other sources removed, seemingly based on nothing as your edit summary does not make any case for it and you have not said anything about it here. nableezy - 19:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:NPA, please. I addressed each of my removals. The entire content was off topic to the section. Futhermore the paragraph beginning with "Thereafter a property tax (arnona) regime was introduced which allowed Jewish settlers a 5-year exemption and then reduced taxes, while leaving Jerusalemite West Bankers, whose zones are classified to be in the high property tax bracket, paying for 26% of municipal services, while themselves receiving only 5% of the benefit (2000).[152] The result was that by 1986 60% of Arab East Jerusalem ..." is blatant WP:SYNTH - making conclusions ("the result..") not made by the cited source. So - SYNTH and off topic. Icewhiz (talk) 19:17, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

There is no personal attack there. I attacked a dishonest claim as dishonest. Ive removed "the result" from the second sentence, satisfying that objection. Each sentence is supported by a singular source. nableezy - 19:22, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Seems I honestly called SYNTH. The ensemble in that paragraph is still SYNTHy - implying connections not made by the sources. It is also POVish in that it does not present the rather large economic advantages held by EJ residents (a coveted status - free travel and work throughout the region). But beyond all that - it is off topic and not related at all to the "territory" header. As much of the present article - we have random factoids and opinions scattered randomly around in an incoherent fashion.Icewhiz (talk) 19:55, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Dishonest was said in reference to the dishonest claim that there was a distortion in saying "must be" when the source said as a matter of policy. That remains dishonest. Your edit, in which you excised entire paragraphs, was based entirely on the inclusion of "the result"? Why didnt you just remove "the result"? Oh, because that was a pretext to doing a whole bunch of changes that are unsupported by any policy, I see. nableezy - 20:04, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Icewhiz you addressed nothing. You repeated your es justifications, and ignored the points I raised. All of your replies are unfocused, like now complaining I added criticism of the PLO without balancing it with praise or criticism of Israel (meaning then, if so, the section requires praise of the PLO!!!!!), the other party to the Oslo Accords!!!! There are hundreds of options for anyone seriously editing this encyclopedia. They include (a) raising the question on a talk page (b) noting a problem idem (c) asking the original editor for an improved source (d) asking the editor why he wrote this rather than that (with suggestions); (e) citing the original source on the talk page and then citing the derived paraphrase, and questioning its accuracy (just making an assertion they don't jive is not convincing); just waving policy flags without explaining what you take their pertinence to mean is again meaningless: you did this with Malki and above I cited the relevant material showing there was no, wp:synth as you asserted; (f) in a text thick with scholarly references all dealing with the topic matter, one has really only one option if one thinks an otherwise well-documented passage is out of place, namely (i) move it elsewhere on the page to a section where one thinks it more appropriate or (ii) to another related page. Removalism tout court of strongly sourced material is a sure indicator of dislike of the content, a desire to wipe it off the wiki record, i.e. of POV pushing of a censorious nature. (g) stating that a paper written by Malki requires attribution because several years later he became a political figure, and was no longer primarily a scholar/professor specializing in these issues at the time he wrote it, is again, slipshod. We judge a text's RS reliability by other factors, and your smearing him (BLP) as a minister for propaganda is a sure indicator of person al dislike, ignoring the fundamnentals point -was he qualified (yes), do peers ion the profession cite him (yes). (h) to use an error re a book publisher as an grounds for removing the book and the content sourced to it, is sheer wikilawyering, and, at that, unique in my experience. With all of these options, you chose simply to excise, without further ado, like raising the issue here.

So exercise a few options. If something troubles you, then raise the point, ask for clarifications for once before striking (out)preemptively. I.e. if you were dissatisfied with the DOP Shehadeh preamble, you should have asked about it and I would have provided more sourcing and material to finesse the passage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs) 20:07, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Read WP:OWN. Other editors may edit this POV mess, and there is quite a bit of off-topic and undue opinions throughout this mess that should be removed.Icewhiz (talk) 20:16, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course anybody can edit it. And anybody can revert edits made without justification in our policies. nableezy - 20:21, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't own the article. But I expect editors who want to edit it to know the subject, of which over 12 years, I have seen little evidence. Take your bit about 'the result was by 1986' as a blatant example of WP:SYNTH. You mentioned this, and immediately the phrasing was adjusted by Nableezy. here. That is just one example of how concerns are addressed, by a tweak, collaboratively. There was no synth in my view, since the two sources (not one as you make out) note the same issue. The gross neglect of East Jerusalem, the bias in the allocation of infrastructural funding, and the fact that Palestinians were being taxed to subsidize municipal services that went predominantly to Jewish Jerusalemites, or as Cheshin et al report, 'The taxes east Jerusalem residents pay are not reflected in the services they receive' (p.22). If you want an expansion on that, the figure I cited was conservative. The East Jerusalemites were even willing to keep paying if they could claw back some investment as low as 50% of what Jewish residents in the municipality were getting, i.e. accept to continue subsidizing Jewish residents if they could have half what the latter were receiving. etc.etc. The Palestinian arnona monies went for decades predominantly to Jews, those who paid it, the Arabs of EJ, got very little return from their taxes, and everyone noted a thorough decay of their urban infrastructure. And you think the one is unconnected to the other?

The point is, Icewhiz, there is a vast mass of detailed documentation out there on the impact of Israeli occupation policies on Palestinian livelihoods. You do not seem interested in having this material adequately, neutrally introduced into Wikipedia. You are excising stuff that is part of the established scholarly record on the thinnest of grounds, a detail of syntax, a choice of a word, a slip over a reference's publisher. One corrects these things one does not exploit them to excise objective data uncontestably in the reliably published record. Facts you dislike are not POV.Nishidani (talk) 21:05, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

And one final note. I have observed in the past deletions justified by this mysterious WP:Undue. What is due or not due, is invariably a subjective call, and should be used unilaterally to excise strongly sourced material only in cases where the argument is pretty clear-cut. It is not an all-purpose flag to wave while swashbuckling through a closely sourced article to gut it.Nishidani (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Annexation

On 28 June 1967, Israel hived off annexed East Jerusalem from the West Bank, extending Israeli "law, jurisdiction and administration" to it by incorporating it into its municipality of West Jerusalem.[145] This move was defended abroad as a purely administrative measure, to provide equal administrative services to all its residents, and not annexation, and the same applies to Israel's assertion of a claim of sovereignty on the passage of the 30 July 1980 Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Israel.

• The article clarified earlier that mainstream sources will reveal a lot of ideological or POV contamination.
• The slipshod use of ‘annexation’ is flawed since no one has so far rebutted Ian Lustick’s article Has Israel Annexed East Jerusalem Middle East Policy Council 1997 pp,35ff
• Changing hived off (neutral) to ‘annexed’ (POV) creates a dissonance in the paragraph and the article. The paragraph states Israel in 1967 did not annex EJ.Nishidani (talk) 08:46, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

  Most see this as an annexation. "Hived off" is decidedly non-neutral. However, a simpler solution would be to stick to the facts - diff - and say that Israel extended its laws and the municipal borders of Jerusalem over there. Why precisely are you claiming that "mainstream sources will reveal a lot of ideological or POV contamination" ?Icewhiz (talk) 09:02, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

• I agree with Icewhiz’s edit. Levivich (talk) 15:18, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Of course, but you do not appear to have examined what he did. Had you, you would surely have corrected the ungrammatical English he left the passage with. It is not 'hive off' that is problematical but his removal of information in the source that is completely uncontroversial. And secondly, one should not use talk pages to vote approval or disapproval. One is obliged to reason here.Nishidani (talk) 15:36, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

(1)

de-facto annexed. Regardless, no need for "hived off”

• False edit summary. (a) There is no mention in the source of a de-facto annexation. The source states the opposite, that Israel’s own position was that it was not annexed, de facto or otherwise.
• (b) Icewhiz cut out what the source explicitly said. I wrote:

This move was defended abroad to paraphrase the source’s To the international community this act was explained.

Icewhiz unaccountably erased this, though there is nothing POV about my paraphrase and its removal is quietly ignored in the edit summary.

• (c) In doing so Icewhiz garbled the English: 'Israel said this a purely administrative measure'.

When an editor removes what a source says without explaining the rationale, it goes back. Nishidani (talk) 15:48, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

@Nishidani: I think we should take a breath, because this is going in a bad direction. You do not seem to be assuming good faith on the part of Icewhiz.

• I fixed the typo by inserting the missing "was." I also changed "applies" in the next sentence to "applied" for tense. This took me one minute. You could have fixed this simple minor mistake in less time than it took you to write out your criticism of the edit.

To avoid the endless IR squabbles, I try to avoid editing a text more than once a day. Had no one fixed it, I would have, having alerted the page, the day after. The point was needed to ask that editors not storm around an article, excising, challenging hastily but that they take care to review not only what another editor does, but also what their edits do. I'm sure the text has a good many simple things like this to fix, but adding to the oversights through haste isn't the way to help out.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• You seem to be trying to make a fight for the sake of making a fight. Let's not do this. Look:
  • "Hived off" is a British-ism; it is not a neutral term in American English (and perhaps other variations) because to "hive," as a verb, means to fill with bees. It carries the connotations of infestation and colonization. Not a phrase that is used in the source, and not the best word we can choose here.

Wikipedia is a global encyclopedia which does not prioritize any one version of English. Linguists note that idiom has for decades become cosmopolitan. You can here American idioms on the lips of English people, or even Angela Merkel speaking in German (shitstorm), and Australian slang in American films, etc.etc. "Hive off" which was used because in a large part of the Anglophone world it is a common term for the act of transferring any kind of asset to another entity (here and here, for example). I thought of it because I tire, writing Wikipedia articles, of the grind of using latinate terms, and that first came to mind spontaneously. One could write 'detach' 'separate' etc., but that kind of language is dull to my ear. No need, in any case, to get a bee in one's bonnet on sighting a nice international neutral coloquialism like 'hive off' surely? Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• • "Annex" is a word at least used by the source: "Internationally, both measures were interpreted as attempts to annex East Jerusalem unilaterally, and were criticized accordingly." Now, we could write, "Internationally, this was seen as an annexation, but Israel explained it was not an annexation because..." But that's really unnecessary. Who cares if we use the word "annex" or something else. I used "annex" in my earlier edit that you reverted, but I'm not going to fight about it.

I for one care. 'Annexation' etymologically means 'draw to oneself' 'attach'. Israel attaches something to itself, as opposed to 'hive off' which doesn't convey anything about taking something from someone else, but simply detaching a part of a whole, and in this sense was definitely more neutral. Precision is the basis of all good writing, and thought. Blame Karl Kraus for his execrable influence on my early formation and prejudices.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• • Icewhiz's solution is a good one as it avoids the semantic controversy altogether.
• The original sentence, "This move was defended abroad as..." is using a word ("defended") that is not in the source and has connotations (implies that it is something that needs "defending," or that the speaker was "defensive"). The source does not use the word "defended," it uses much more neutral words, like "explained," "asserted," "reasoned," and "express[ed]." So I agree with removing the word "defended." Again, I agree with Icewhiz's rewrite, which uses "stated."

We paraphrase sources, meaning we avoid using directly the language of the source, per WP:COPYVIO. The choice of the word 'defend' is to be understood in context, best expressed or explained or asserted by a remark by Asher Maoz, cited earlier in one of the books I use here, on the paradox of Israeli commentary at that time, which had two sides, one to a foreign audience critical of the measure, and another to the internal audience thrilled at the extension of Israeli jurisdiction.

‘In terms of internal Israeli politics, local leaders were not shy to admit that as a result of these enactments, East Jerusalem was now fully integrated within Israel. Asher Maoz aptly summarized this policy as follows:” while the leaders of the state were making it clear both within and without the Knesset that East Jerusalem had been annexed to Israel, the representatives of the state in international forums fervently denied that this was the result.'(Michael Mousa Karayanni, https://books.google.com/books?id=mmBiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA5 Conflicts in a Conflict: A Conflict of Laws Case Study on Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Oxford University Press, 2014 p.4)

Icewhiz did not only remove 'defend', he elided the international interlocutors. Rewriting 'Israel said this a purely administrative measure,' only begs the question: Given that 'Israel' was telling its own this was an 'annexation' and telling outsiders this is not an annexation, 'Israel' did not "say" tout court: it said one thing internally and another to the foreign community. By erasing ( "defended") abroad, Icewhiz, unfamiliar with the historical context, made out Israel had a single position in speaking. it didn't.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

When you are subject to strong criticism, you 'defend yourself'. 'Assert/explain/reasoned/expressed' all fail because the Israeli government representatives spoke differently according to which audience (foreign or internal) they were addressing. They didn't have to 'defend' the move in Israel, where they could clarify and indeed 'proclaim' enthusiastically the real intention. This double-speak is typical (I have even published on it) of all nations whose language is not readily accessible to people in the tediously monoglottal Anglophone world, and one will never capture the nuance by speciously neutral terms like 'assert/explain/reason or express, in my view.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• There is no functional difference between what the source said, "...this act was explained as..." and the current, "Israel said it was..."

See above. If one knows the context, there is an enormous difference.Nishidani (talk) 20:09, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

• So, yes, I agree with this edit. And I think the edit summary (and the edits themselves) were obvious. I don't see the editor as doing anything wrong here.
• By the way I haven't reviewed any other edits and I express no opinion on those. Levivich (talk) 16:42, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

I dont really see this as too big an issue, so long as we dont say "annexed" as the sources, and Israel themselves, dispute(d) that. The rest of the removals were based on nothing at all. nableezy - 17:30, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Levivich et al.

@Levivich: If you read the sources you would realize why the current text is a falsification.

1: West Bank is the name given to the area by Jordan based on the 1948 lines.

2: The Israeli HCJ opinion is not the same as the ICJ opinion as the source shows saying they are "both" the same is a falsification.Jonney2000 (talk) 02:05, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jonney2000: I apologize but I am not understanding what you are saying. Here is what the source says:

According to the HCJ in Alfei Menashe, both Courts ruled that the status of the territory under discussion, namely, the "occupied Palestinian territory" in the ICJ's terminology, and the "West Bank" (or "Judea and Samaria") in the HCJ's terminology, is one of "belligerent occupation" (para. 57).

— Domb 2007 p. 511

The sentence in the article is: "The status of the West Bank as an occupied territory has been affirmed by both the International Court of Justice and the Israeli Supreme Court," then citation [3] to Domb 2007 p. 511, followed by, "though the official Israeli government view is that the law of occupation does not apply," and further citations for that clause.

The edit I reverted changed that sentence to this: "The status of the West Bank as an occupied territory has been affirmed by the International Court of Justice, similarly the Israeli Supreme Court has held that the area designated by Israel as Judea and Samaria which excludes East Jerusalem is administered via military occupation,[3] though the official Israeli government view is that the law of occupation does not apply."

I don't understand how the first clause of the original sentence is not supported by the source cited. I also don't understand, with all due respect, how this edit changed the meaning of the sentence. It read to me like after the edit, it said the same thing as before, but in a grammatically-incorrect way. Levivich (talk) 02:18, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Levivich: maybe you should read pages 512 and 513 as if 511 does not note "the differences between the opinions [expressed by the ICJ and the HCJ] outweigh the similarities." I did change the page numbers to 511-513.

my own summary

A: ICJ Whole West Bank is occupied status cannot be changed ever!

B: HCJ Israel has decided to administer the territories as a military occupation. This status can change at any time and does not apply to East Jerusalem which is part of the West Bank but not part of Judea and Samaria.Jonney2000 (talk) 02:44, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

@Jonney2000:I changed it to specify that HCJ doesn't consider EJ "occupied." OK now? Levivich (talk) 03:35, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

One of the huge ironies of one of the earliest HCJ decisions was that the majority voted in one of the key cases that EJ was in Israel because the Palestinian defendants in a case involving the transport of antiques from Hebron to their shop in East Jerusalem claimed that Jordanian law applied (same area), and in it EJ was not a foreign country, and hence the conveyance of the goods did not require an export permit. When this was knocked back by a military court, they petitioned the HCJ, and two of the presiding 3 judges quoted their attorney's admission that EJ was now part of Israel, and on the strength of that declaration, his clients lost their suit. The majority did not rule that the EJ was annexed to Israel: they ruled that the plaintiffs admitted they thought it now was and therefore had committed a crime of exporting without a permit. That quixotic judgement was one of the foundational texts of precedent for later legal assertions EJ was annexed.Nishidani (talk) 20:23, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

territory section

Levivich, I think I understand what you are trying to do with that positioning, but it doesnt work. I think you are trying to introduce the land as a place and then continue, but the sections you put there dont logically fit before the West Bank in 1967 section. The EJ and Area C sections arent discussing the territory so much as how Israel has administered them after the occupation began, and in the case of Area C, after Oslo. Having that before Jordan's occupation in 1967 and the beginning of Israel's doesnt make sense to me. nableezy - 07:31, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I think the article needs a territory/geography section that talks about the land of the West Bank, and the major areas (like EJ and Area C, probably also major cities and settlements). I think a lot of what's there now should be moved to other sections (such as discussion of the term "annexation," which should go to the language section, and discussion of Israel's administration of the area, which should go under the Military Governance section or some other section under what I propose be called "Methods of Israeli occupation" or somesuch). If you want to move those sections back to where they were before (and rename "Territory" back to "Geography")–or make any other edits you feel appropriate–I have no objection. The "Territory"/"Geography" section can be expanded later. Levivich (talk) 07:46, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I get what you were trying to do with a territory section, and I am not opposed to that, but what was put there isnt about the territory or geography. Id prefer if you self-reverted it instead of me doing so as there is a 1RR in place here that I do not want to run afoul of. The initial geography section you included was fine by me, but moving EJ and Area C there was not. nableezy - 07:52, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Thank you Levivich, I appreciate you. nableezy - 08:07, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Likewise! Took me a couple tries there... Levivich (talk) 08:08, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The positioning disorders the logical sequencing of the article. The original two sections on language and media were placed at the head for a simple reason. Since this is an overview of a controversial series of events whose reportage in sources is itself subject to wide interrogation, the reader needs an indication of the problem in sourcing the article itself.Nishidani (talk) 12:29, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

WP:SPINOUTs

Thoughts on spinning out child articles as follows?

• Geographical impact (I'm not sure what to call this section) containing current sections:

Land seizure mechanisms

Settlement

Settler violence

• Occupation methods (again, I'm terrible with titles) containing current sections:

Military Administration

State of asymmetric war (and all subsections)

Technologies of control (and subsection)

Collective punishment (and all subsections)

• Impact on Palestinians containing current sections:

Initial impact of occupation

Fragmentation (and all subsections)

Loss of cultural property

Agriculture

Resource extraction

Tourism

• Impact on Israelis probably not long enough to require a spin-out, but whether spun out or not, containing sections:

Economic and social benefits and costs of the occupation (and all subsections)

Wider implications

• Israeli critical judgments would be unaffected

Levivich (talk) 07:04, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

We already have a child article on Israeli settler violence. Im working on one for the Permit regime. I dont think any of the others really needs a child article yet. Yes this article is large and needs to be tightened a bit, but for the most part each of these sections already is just a summary of what a full child article would be. nableezy - 07:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This article is 300k. How would you suggest we reduce it to under 100k per WP:SIZERULE? Or are you saying leave it this size? Levivich (talk) 07:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

100k is readable prose size, not total size. Currently readable prose is 162 kb. nableezy - 07:27, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

So what's your suggestion for cutting the readable prose down to below 100k? My suggestion is above. :-) Levivich (talk) 07:35, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Tighten where possible. I see several places where 5 words might suffice instead of the 20 currently there. My point was that what you propose spinning out would still require summaries here, and what we currently have already is a summary of what a fully fleshed out child article would contain. Its not as if making a child article means that the material vanishes entirely here. Its going to take time though, but its not like theres a due date on this. nableezy - 07:38, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible to copyedit this article down by half. I think you can tighten it 10-20% that way (or any similar-sized piece of writing), but not half. I could be wrong, and you're right, there is no deadline. I think the existing "summaries" should be summarized further, and then the child articles could be expanded. It seems like having a "Methods of occupation..." child article, and a "Impact of occupation..." child article are relatively easy and obvious ways to cut this article down by 40% or so. But that's just my two cents. Levivich (talk) 07:50, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I think youd be shocked at how much tighter I can phrase things compared to my loquacious friend Nishidani. nableezy - 07:55, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If the problem were size, then adding 4,000b to an article whose prior length was thought to be not compliant with best practice is definitely not a solution. To the contrary, both a geography section and a timeline only exacerbate the issue. Indeed, by adding that unfocused and generic bulk readily available to anyone with a click, while pleading for a move to remove much of the factual meat of the article, is extremely odd. This is not about the I/P conflict: it is very specifically focused on core structural facts which, to date, have not been registered on Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 08:30, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

My thoughts are that some sections need to be added (geography, timeline, parties, causes), other sections should be condensed and spun off (methods, impact), and when all that is done, the entire thing should be under 100k of prose. I also think that size is the least important, when compared with content. So the adding and copyediting could proceed in tandem, and if that doesn't get it down enough, we can always revisit the spin-off issue? Levivich (talk) 08:38, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The page at 374,006 bytes was cut by roughly 2,000 bytes, with my removal of 1,728 and, User NSH001’s fixing a further 98 =1,826, meaning we would have got it to 372,180 instead of the 375,676 Your additions resulted in. Had that bloat not been added the page would now stand at 368,684, namely 5,322 bytes lighter, effortlessly, at the very outset of the requested revision. So I'd appreciate you reconsidering the additions you made.Nishidani (talk) 17:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The point is, you are asking the article to be downsized while expanding it, which is incomprehensible and an editorial self-conbtradiction. What has been added is already on numerous wiki articles. What you suggest be split off exists only here. Everytime you add expansions that have no factual bearing, and are readily available elsewhere, you are putting more pressure on thinning down the factual content. The process described in sources says the Israeli approach to the WB is one of endless fragmentation of a pre-existing entity, isolating one area/village from another. To approach an article documenting this by isolating each theme from its content in an overview, shearing off sections for inclusion on other pages perfectly mimics that political agenda. I am sure you are unaware of this implicit parallel between what you propose doing, and what Israel appears to do in the West Bank, but the parallel is obvious and troubling. Making so many edits, then reverting them, then changing your mind, is not the way to approach complexity.Nishidani (talk) 12:14, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

This is an overview article, containing the minimum per theme. It can't be split, or have sections spliced out or spun off without destroying the overview'c comprehensiveness. There are numerous articles, also FAs which run over the 100 optimum length, be cause the topic demands it. The first way to address such concerns is by exercising the art of précis, which consists of

(a) Synthesizing and simplifying the each section, without taking out the factual content.

(b) Transferring to existing articles the fuller content intact, leaving the précis here.

I am quite happy to proceed with a substantial précis of this article to reduce the text. Since all of the material is reliably sourced and cogently related to the I/P area, it should be obvious that the logical procedure is to find a home for the full material, section by section, and then leave the synthesis of its import on this page. That is the gist of Levivich's request, if I am not mistaken. To show how this can be done, I took ther ‘legality’ section and, with some expansion and corrections of the related material I found there, pasted it on the International law and Israeli settlements main page, while cutting. down our section 50%. What was the result? Icewhiz elided what I transferred, all of it.

Offtopic in background section, which details the facts on the ground which are then opinied on

That edit is against probably indictable, because his revert ignored the fact he was erasing from the page not only my addition but also the pre-existing material in that article regarding Theodor Meron which I had adapted into my original text since they overlapped. From his edit summary, Theodor Meron’s memorandum on the legality of settlements is off-topic full stop, though it forms the background to all later official Israeli responses. His blind revert of my rewrite obliterated absolutely crucial to the topic which lay there, untroubled, before I touched it.

Clearly, I cannot précis this page if, in moving stuff elsewhere, it is immediately erased. It would mean helping a double erasure, this text being pared to the bone, and then the full record itself made to disappear from sister pages. Effectively that kind of behaviour signals that what is being objected to is not the size nor the quality of the RS but rather the representation of the full factual record on wikipedia. Nishidani (talk) 17:00, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Just because something can be sourced, does not mean it should be stuffed somewhere on Wikipedia without thought of NPOV, DUE, or in the case above - relevance and context. Your edit was reverted since it was entirely off-topic to the section you placed it in - the question of legality of settlements should not have gone into the background section of the legality of settlements article - which develops the legality argument in great detail. As for this page - if this is to remain (and not to be deleted as a POVFORK) - significant portions of UNDUE and out of context opinions and other crud should be removed - I would estimate some 66% of the present article, and content from balancing sources should be added per NPOV. Icewhiz (talk) 20:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The topic is the Israeli occupation of the WB. The sources consist overwhelmingly of specialized monographs on that topic, which is the optimal criterion for composing Wikipedia articles.They are therefore relevant to the context. You made an at sight revert of an edit which incorporated material from this page, and from the said article. Your excuse is flawed. Had you read my edits, you would have seen that I moved up material on Meron already existing on that page, and in blindly reverting, you gutted all mention of Meron, a serious abuse amounting to censorship of the existing historical record. You didn't take time to note I was using material already on that page' which you had no warrant to revert simply because I happened to tweak it. And I placed it right where it belonged: it was stated 'after the war, the Israeli government authorised the construction of military settlements for security purposes.' What was omitted that these authorizations came from Levi Eshkol after he had read Meron's opinion. Eshkol is then mentioned, falsely, only for putatively offering to give back the conquered territories, an untruth which still stands there (and duly corrected on this talk page). As Gorenberg notes, Eshkol read Meron's opinion stating civilian settlements as opposed to short-term military bases, were illegal, and that is thoroughly appropriate to the background. Most of that text is incompetent, and you removed one effort to make it reflect the factual record.

The rest of your remarks consist of asserting a documentation of established facts, for what this is is a sset of facts ordered thematically, should be removed because the facts, which no one has yet challenged, are not consonant with NPOV. That is a 'unique' argument. Nishidani (talk) 21:18, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

If somebody feels that material is off-topic in a given section, and if that person is acting in good faith, they would move the material. They also wouldnt use possibly off-topic material to remove on-topic material as well. That is what a tendentious editor who is editing with a nationalistic motive might do, but not one acting in good faith. You can keep babbling about a POVFORK, but this is emphatically not WP:AFD. If you want to give me a chuckle, go ahead and nominate it. nableezy - 00:13, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

timeline

Im really not a fan of that table, it is disjointed, incomplete, and much of it is of little relevance here. nableezy - 07:28, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I'm surprised you think "much" of it is not relevant, but I encourage you to add what you think is missing and remove what you think is irrelevant. I do feel strongly that this article needs a timeline of major events during the occupation to orient the reader, such as when it began, and major changes the administration/governance of the West Bank, major changes in the relations of the involved parties. Surely you agree there have been "major events" that occurred during the last 50 years? Surely a short list of such events would be helpful to the reader? Levivich (talk) 07:40, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, there have been major events, but a list of wikilinks plopped down in the middle of an article doesnt help a reader. That short list of events is laid out in the prose of the article, not as a disjointed set of events with no readily apparent connection to what preceded it or what follows it. nableezy - 07:50, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

You understand that "laid out in the prose," when the prose is 180k, is not accessible? And it's at the beginning of the article, not the middle... A timeline or chronology of events is like, an extremely common thing for, say, a book, to have, at the beginning... I think it would be useful here. I'm really surprised by your objection to a timeline, and your preference to have it "laid out in prose" and not in list format. Levivich (talk) 07:52, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Well is it common for a Wikipedia article to have? Ive been here a while, I dont think Ive seen a table of links like that, outside of a list article. The prose is 162kb, but yes I understand that makes it difficult. I dont see how adding to the total size helps that though. nableezy - 07:54, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Well... yes, it's common for a WP article to have a chronology, either as part of the TOC (because the article is organized chronologically and the section headings include dates... this article is not and does not), or in the infobox (this article has none), or in a separate sidebar box somewhere, or a combination of the above. See, for example, these timelines in featured articles: American_Revolution (TOC and infobox), Occupation of Japan (infobox), Occupation of the Baltic states (TOC and infobox), World_War_II (TOC, infobox, and add'l sidebar), Western Chalukya Empire (TOC, infobox, add'l sdiebar), Macedonia (ancient kingdom) (infobox), British Empire (TOC), History_of_Gibraltar (TOC and sidebar), History of Burnside (TOC), History of Poland (1945–1989) (TOC and sidebar), Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760) (TOC).

If this article were organized chronologically and the TOC provided the chronology at a glance, I would be OK with getting rid of the timeline section. I'd also be OK with putting the timeline in an infobox or sidebar, so it's not a whole "section," similar to how it's done in the articles I linked to above. Levivich (talk) 08:25, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

The chronology deals with a generic and selective handful of incidents that do not bear directly on the specific topic. In the article as it stands you have a specific implicit chronology given per section. Each section technically was written to provide an early marker of an occupational practice, and then to illustrate it by details of development. One could formulate an appropriate chronology by making a timeline of the material already here in terms of a schema listing the dates of all of the military regulations introduced. That is very easy to do, instead of copying and pasting a timeline already known which is not specific to the West Bank topic. But, as I said elsewhere, asserting an article has a major problem with length and then acting to address the problem by adding a significant new mass of (irrelevant) data is procedurally erratic and self-contradictory.Nishidani (talk) 08:37, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I dont have a problem creating a collapsible list in an infobox. I do with putting it as a section in the article. It just looks garrish to me there. nableezy - 15:22, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I agree it's ugly as it is now. I will move it to a collapsible infobox later today, we can see how it looks then. Levivich (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it is not a timeline of the occupation of the West Bank, and therefore as written, inappropriate. A timeline on this topic must deal with major events in the West Bank, some of which I cite in my counter example below. I'm still waiting for a reply as to why you are adding material that has nothing to do with the topic, while asking us to radically cut back the relevant factual content.Nishidani (talk) 21:24, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I am not asking you or anyone else to do anything. Levivich (talk) 21:40, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say that. You are adding substantial material to an article while asking other editors to radically trim. I.e. seemingly exercising an executive privilege to be above the rule you insist all other editors should follow. I'd like you to explain why you do this.Nishidani (talk) 08:03, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

I have neither asked nor insisted that other editors do anything. Levivich (talk) 15:37, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

To illustrate the futility of a timeline, here is what a skimpy timeline focused on the article's topic matter would look like (and to be comprehensive it would have to be quadrupled, including the dates for the establishment of all Israeli settlement blocs) Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 15 December 2018 (UTC)

Date	Event(s)
1966	Israeli raid on Samu in retaliation for Syrian backed attack from the West Bank
June 6-8 1967	Jordan shells Israel after Israel attacked Egypt. Israel conquers the West Bank
28 June 1967	Israel its laws and jurisdiction exclusively to the East Jerusalem area of the West Bank
31 July 1967	Military Order Number 59 makes all Jordanian state land Israel state land.
14 September 1967	Internal memorandum on the legality of the settlement project by Theodor Meron
7 June 1967	General Chaim Herzog announces Jordanian law will be retained, except where military needs require changes
January 1968	Israel esxpropriates private Palestinian land for an industrial park at Kalandia and apartment blocs
14 June 1970	Military Order No. 393 requires that any Palestinian industrial plant projects in the WB obtain a prior permit from the Israeli military.
12 April, June 1970	The Hebron and Alon Shvut settlement process initiated
1978	Israel, asserting military reasons, establishes Ariel on private Palestinian property
30 July 1980	The Jerusalem Law passes.
November 1981	Military order no. 947 establishes the Israeli Civil Administration
1987	First Intifada
1988	Jordan cedes most of the West Bank to the State of Palestine
1993	The Oslo I Accord splits the West Bank, excluding East Jerusalem, into 3 areas, giving Israel exclusive authority in Area C for a five year transitional period. The Ist Intifada formally ends.
1994	Palestinian National Authority established
1995	Oslo II Accord
1997	Protocol Concerning the Redeployment in Hebron
2000	Outbreak of the Al Aqsa Intifada
2002	Operation Defensive Shield; Battle of Jenin; Israeli West Bank barrier construction begins
2004	The International Court of Justice rules that WB Israeli settlements are in breach of international law.
2006	Hamas wins the 2006 legislative elections in the West Bank