Talk:Church of the Nativity World Heritage Site Controversy

Strong NPOV concerns
The article as currently written suffers from severe POV issues. It is clearly written with the intent of delegitimizing Palestine as a state via its World Heritage Site, and may be a WP:POVFORK of Church of the Nativity. The "Approval" section is particularly (though not exclusively) problematic: for instance, "The site was approved under criteria four and six, as opposed to the third criterion that was applied in the bid" is obviously meant to suggest that the approval was invalid because the site was approved for different criteria than those bid, but four and six were part of the bid. Other, similar parts contribute to the problem. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 17:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with this article is it's existence. The new WHS is just one of 975 other sites and doesn't deserve a special treatment. This article is about a "Palestinian WHS - yes or no", while the issue is the Church of Nativity and it's importance to humanity. Ori (talk) 18:10, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Firstly, Ori, it was created because YOU had objection to the content about the specifics. OSE is not a valid arguement...assertions for why something was given status are notable and are cited on each and every WHS, but without the details because WP didnt exist or no one owas bpothered.
 * How this is "obviously meant to suggest" something i have no idea as thats directly from the source and an interpretation of individual pov.Lihaas (talk) 18:58, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Indeed, I agree with you that the inclusion of the three criteria doesn't suggest a thing. As for the new article, I thank you for taking my views into account, but I wish to explain that I don't think the information in this article is relevant to our readers. The WHS of the Church of Nativity is just as all other 974 sites, and the issue is the Church. This new article is dealing with the questions "Is it in Palestine or not?" "Does Palestine deserve to have it's own WHS or not?" and so on. Having writen this article, you yourself drew the dividing line between Palestine and any other member of UNESCO, Ori (talk) 19:14, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Wo, what "dividing line" did i draw? Its simpy based on the fact that this was a big issue NOT by my tbut by the variety of sources that make it ITN. and that because of the controversy. You say it delegitimises israel, the original post says it delegitimises plestine? Thats reason enough that its NOT pov and just interpretation (which is what an encyclopaedia leaves to the reader)Lihaas (talk) 10:50, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm sorry, but I do not recall saying anything about delegitimising Israel. I am running the WH portal in the Hebrew WP, and we simply added the template with a Palestinian flag in it, saying it was the first Palestinian WHS and that's all. No body saw anything controversial or problematic with it. Only here it becomes an outofthisworld fenomena. Ori (talk) 16:51, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Just as I said - it's possible to represent the facts, from the sources, without additionally adding your own editorial spin. Contrary to your claim, the source does not suggest that there was anything irregular in which criteria got the bid approved, for instance. –Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 15:35, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

To try and clear up some of the NPOV concerns, I moved the article to "Church of the Nativity World Heritage Site Controversy". This article was never intended to be about "the Church of the Nativity that is a World Heritage Site". Instead, this is supposed to be an article on the event of granting World Heritage Site status to the Church of the Nativity. Everything about the building should be at Church of the Nativity, whereas this article should be about the political events of the UNESCO decision. This is, simply put, an article about a news event that happens to feature the church as a MacGuffin, no different from Siege of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Hiberniantears (talk) 16:24, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Article name
Given the title presents a legitimate POV forking issue, how about we move this article to Church of the Nativity World Heritage Site Controversy? The spirit of this article isn't intended to have a POV fork of the main article, but rather to have an article on the granting of membership and the political implications surrounding it. Hiberniantears (talk) 01:59, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Support this as a compromise...its jsut that its on the main page so the hordes come there on revcentism basis.
 * But yeah, lets omve ahead with what you said. Or better yr Church of the Nativity (World Heritage Site) controversy?Lihaas (talk) 09:22, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Custodian stance
I've been reading some conflicting info on the custodian stance. While I havent't seen it disputed that the three custodians originally opposed the move, the Roman Catholic custodian at least seems to have since moderated his stance at least after the decision. Some of the sources suggest this was at least partially in response to reassurances from the Palestinian authorities, and some seem to imply it may have happened before the UNESCO decision but I haven't found anything that clear cut and in particular, whether this view was explained to those voting (although I'm not sure if they actually expressed their views to UNESCO or simply the Palestinian authorities anyway). Considering the politics involved, it seems clear the custodians didn't really want to be caught in the middle and I'm not entirely sure if they really wanted their opposition to be public or it came out. Nil Einne (talk) 21:09, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Funds and votes
I saw some allegations by the Palestinian side that they'd been trying to secure funding for repair work but had only managed 3 million out of 20 million (or something like that) which was one reason they wanted the designation. Considering how long it took me to find some of the sources above which I read before, I can't be bothered looking for them again. Also does anyone know about the vote? Some sources say it was a secret vote yet others claim to know who voted what. Nil Einne (talk) 21:13, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Edit found here . BTW re-reading the article, I noticed it doesn't seem to properly mention the Israeli view that they fully support and have done nothing to get in the way of the repair work (it only mentions that the site isn't under threat from the IDF). Nil Einne (talk) 21:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)