Talk:Israeli occupation of the West Bank

Media coverage as first section?
Does it make sense to have "media coverage" be the first section in this article? It seems awkward. I'd propose to move this section to the bottom, unless someone has a better suggestion. DMH43 (talk) 18:01, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Also, the section seems to be about media coverage of the conflict, rather than specifically about the occupation. The only part that seems directly related to the occupation is:
 * Bias in coverage of the conflict has been debated from multiple sides, with Peter Beinart criticizing an "Orwellian" usage of euphemisms, and others have decried the use of "sanitized terminology".
 * Each party has its preferred set of descriptive words. International usage speaks of the West Bank, whereas Israeli usage prefers "Judea and Samaria", evoking the Biblical names for much of the territory, and governs it, excepting East Jerusalem, under the Israeli district name of Judea and Samaria Area; Israeli settlements are called "colonies" or "neighbourhoods" depending on the viewpoint. Violence by Palestinians is regularly labeled terrorism by Israel, whereas Israeli military actions are reported as "retaliation" for Palestinian attacks, and the context for those attacks is often disregarded, lending credence to the idea Israel never initiates violence.
 * I propose we remove the rest of the text in this section. DMH43 (talk) 18:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is also now done DMH43 (talk) 00:57, 24 January 2024 (UTC)
 * This is now done DMH43 (talk) 00:46, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed changes to shorten length
Part of the feedback from the GA review was that the article was too long. I agree it is long, although I'm not sure its "too" long. In any case, I think it's worth it to at least discuss how to incorporate this feedback. Here is my high level list of proposed changes:
 * 1) Moving the discussion of the "four schools of thought" on israeli security concerns to a new article
 * 2) Merging of "Early Economic impact of the occupation" with "Economic and social benefits..."
 * 3) The section on "settlement" has a lot of details. I propose moving these details to the main article on settlements and keeping the most important points related to maintaining the occupation. I would leave the "settler violence" and "legal status" section unchanged, although a reviewer suggested that having a "legal status" subsection for settlements and one for the occupation is confusing (which I actually disagreewith).
 * 4) Move some details on the second intifada to that article.
 * 5) Details from the subsections in "Territorial fragmentation and domination over the Palestinians" can be moved to the main articles. We can just present the main points in these subsections. I think we can cut this section down by half while still preserving the main points.
 * 6) Perhaps the "collective punishment" section should be its own article? This section reads more like a human rights report than a subsection about the occupation.
 * 7) The "resources" section can be limited to points relating directly to the occupation, such as destruction of agricultural goods.

There was also a comment on an overreliance on primary sources. I think if we shift the sources to more secondary sources it would also reduce the length of the article. DMH43 (talk) 19:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @Nishidani tagging you for feedback here if you have a chance. DMH43 (talk) 17:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Assuming the new HR article stays up, then that should produce some further reduction here. Selfstudier (talk) 18:22, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Proposed renaming of sections
Rename “state of assymmetric war” to “methods of enforcing and resisting the occupation”

Rename “wider implications” to “exporting methods of enforcing the occupation” and possibly adding a discussion on the occupation setting a precedant in international law. DMH43 (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Rename "Conquest" to "Beginning of the Occupation", since the territory has not been formally annexed into Israel and even the Israeli Supreme Court recognizes it as occupied territory. Also, other articles about the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank do not use the morally loaded/antiquated word "Conquest", and they legally annexed it (a step that Israel has not taken). --Tobyw87 (talk) 21:31, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 80% of the section is not about the occupation, but plans to conquer the West Bank. read it.Nishidani (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I did, again the section listed as Conquest is about the occupation not future plans for annexation, which would be actual conquest. It is inconsistent with the article on Jordan's annexation of the West Bank, which does not mention the word conquest even one time. If we are to be consistent, both articles should use similar verbiage. Israel hasn't annexed the territory yet, so it is not correct to say it has been conquered when that is an event that may or may occur in the future. If we do not change this article, we should add the word conquest to Jordan's article. Tobyw87 (talk) 22:59, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Alternatively the section could be titled "Plans for Occupation", since a lot of the section is about figures like Ben-Gurion and others about future intentions. Conquest isn't specific enough and it is also inconsistent with other articles about territory changes during this time. Tobyw87 (talk) 23:06, 11 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The conquest section seems to be mostly about administration, not plans. We should be wary of making long and inaccessible section titles, but the current "Conquest" does feel misnamed. Pulling "Military-Civil Administration" and "Israeli security concerns" out would be a start. CMD (talk) 04:10, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * There is something called the Egg of Columbus. All these concerns arise from the use of two '--' instead of three. Adjusted since your only concern was making 'conquest' a section head with following subsections. 'Conquest' is now part 1 of three subsections, the other being the military administrative character set up in 1967, and the security and territory issue that arose fromn that date onwards. All three are concerned with the inchoate patterns established in 1967, which the rest of the text then explains successively by theme.


 * More generally, The word ‘occupation’ refers to the state of Israeli activities from 1967-2024 onwards. The word ’conquest’ refers to the single event 1967. The former is ambiguous, the latter accurate.
 * The conquest subsection, as it now stands, refers to the planning and execution that led to Israel's military acquisition of those territories, i.e., via conquest, the default term in the literature.
 * Ervin Birnbaum, In the Shadow of the Struggle:: Israel's Bumpy Road to Independence Gefen Publishing House 1980 ISBN 978-9-652-29037-3 p.296
 * Shaul Mishal, ‎Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence  Columbia University Press 2006 ISBN 978-0-231-14006-5 p.18
 * Ami Gluska,The Israeli Military and the Origins of the 1967 War: Government, Armed Forces and Defence Policy 1963–67 Routledge 2007 ISBN 9781134163779, p.219
 * Martin Gilbert,The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 10th edition Routledge  2012  ISBN 978-0-415-69975-4 p.74


 * Yifat Holzman-Gazit,Land Expropriation in Israel:Law, Culture and Society Taylor & Francis 2016 978-1-138-24927-1 p.130


 * Avshalom Rubin, The Limits of the Land: How the Struggle for the West Bank Shapes the Arab-Israeli Conflict Indiana University Press 2017 ISBN 978-0-253-02897-6 p.187


 * Moshe Shemesh,The Palestinian National Revival: In the Shadow of the Leadership Crisis, 1937–1967 Indiana University Press 2018 ISBN 978-0-253-03660-5 p.290


 * Dov Waxman,The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: What Everyone Needs to Know Oxford University Press 2019 ISBN 978-0-190-62534-4 p.157


 * Gilad Ben-Nun,The Fourth Geneva Convention for Civilians: The History of International Humanitarian Law Bloomsbury Publishing 2020 ISBN 978-1-838-60431-8 p.146


 * Noam Shoked, In the Land of the Patriarchs:Design and Contestation in West Bank Settlements University of Texas Press 2023  ISBN 978-1-477-32854-5 p.14
 * The whole thrust of these three subsections is to provide an overview of the events leading up to the conquest, the conquest itself, and the various options vetted about how to administer the land, what land might lend itself to colonization, and what security concerns would entail, how the options would inflect Israel's approach to these territories. All three factors crystallized in 1967, and that focus is what drove the original drafting.Nishidani (talk) 13:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is all very good and nice, I never really contested that conquest cannot be used as a term to describe what Israel has done to the West Bank. What I contest is that this is the BEST subheading for this section. I think additional words like "Plans for occupation", would serve this section better. Conquest alone in isolation does very little to explain what is in the section and it is non-informative. At the very least, it should be more than one word. As you hint, there's a difference between the words occupation, conquest, and annexation. The title of the article is "Israeli Occupation of the West Bank", not "Israeli Conquest of the West Bank.", therefore subheadings should reflect the title, even if literature mentions the word conquest. Conquest is not just the act of taking over a place with military force, it is also the act of subjugation. I contest this is not actually descriptive of the '67 change in territory since it wasn't a full conquest---there was never annexation, and military subjugation was only ever partial at most. The literature uses this term, and that's fine---I am merely pointing out that it is not actually that descriptive in and of itself, especially in isolation as the sole word for this subheading.
 * Furthermore, it is rather odd and curious that conquest does not exist in the article about Jordan conquering/occupying/annexing the West Bank as I have previously said. And, just for consistencies sake conquest appears frequently in describing what Jordan did after '48, here, here, here, here, and here. Do you propose that we add conquest to Jordan for consistencies sake? Or by what measure is Israel's occupation different from Jordan's occupation/annexation?
 * The elucidation of these terms can be present in either or just one of these articles, that would be fine (but of course it isn't at all and should probably be added). What I have an issue with is a term that is clearly different from the one used in the title being used in isolation and in a novel way independent of other articles similar to this one. I think Wikipedia should try its best to treat the Israeli/Palestinian conflict fairly, and by the looks of this verbiage it seems like editors here want to vilify Israel using a different lexicon than it wants to use to describe similar actions taken by other states in the region. Tobyw87 (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * How much experience do you have in writing complex articles that must cover a massive range of information?  That is a fair riposte to your paternalistically condescending opening remark,'This is all very good and nice,' coming from someone with some 646 edits in 18 years. The above is just a set of opinions. I have difficulty responding to them. For example:
 * "The title of the article is 'Israeli Occupation of the West Bank', not 'Israeli Conquest of the West Bank"
 * Raul Hilberg's classic The Destruction of the European Jews runs to 765 pages. The incipit is 174 pages, and doesn't deal with the actual 'destruction' but the prelude to it, how the definitions of the victims were made earlier, what laws arose to discriminate against Jews, how the infrasstructure for the transport of uprooted people and their concentration in camps were set up, how they were exploited, all lengthy subsections without any dwelling on the industrial murder process that then ensued. So let's change all the subsection titles because they don't deal explicitly with the actual event announced in the title. Huh!?
 * The only other thing is the dead give-away of
 * "it seems like editors here want to 'vilify Israel using a different lexicon than it wants to use to describe similar actions taken by other states in the region"
 * That contradicts your own earlier point.The article title says this is about the Israeli occupation, not about parallels (the Japanese Occupation of China with its 35 million victims, or the Spanish Occupation of the Americas with its 25 million dead, or the British Occupation of Australia with its decimation of the 670 indigenous tribes, etc.etc. - all events which began with a 'conquest'). The term conquest is in hundreds of academic sources (I gave a mere snippet of 10 examples) which describe the occupation. It's not a 'different lexicon'. In short, you appear to think that when describing what the state of Israel does, its history must be manicured so that absolutely no implication of violence must emerge that implies it is exceptional, because other states have done similar things. A paradoxical set of assumptions: Israel is 'exceptional' (above 'vilification', i.e. writing up the tragic narrative of what it did to a people it occupied must not suggest in a damaging way that Israel harmed them). But also Israel is 'normal' because what it did is typical of conquering states. Go figure.
 * History doesn't have pets. The record is set forth without fear or favour, whatever wokist proponents of political correct reading curricula may think. Nishidani (talk) 07:57, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggesting a revert of a deletion
@Longhornsg please explain your edit summary: "this has nothing to do with the post-1967 occupation" for this edit which deletes a paragraph explaining the historical background on the connection with apartheid south africa. Specifically, in what sense does this have "nothing to do with the post1967 occupation"? DMH43 (talk) 06:39, 18 January 2024 (UTC)


 * How are cherry-picked quotations from the Yishuv period, before Israel was even in existence, related to actions by the state of Israel after it gained territories during a war? Are there RS that link these quotations to the occupation? Otherwise this is pure WP:SYNTH. Explain how RS say it's related. Longhornsg (talk) 23:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * 1. the deleted discussion provides background on the current occupation
 * 2. The sources cited in the deleted text. see for example Peteet, Julie (Winter 2016). "The Work of Comparison: Israel/Palestine and Apartheid". Anthropological Quarterly. 89 (1): 247–281. DMH43 (talk) 23:35, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * SYNTH is connecting it to the occupation, the subject of this article. This implies that from the onset Zangwill and others were looking at apartheid South Africa as inspiration. Which, of course, is flatly not true, given that apartheid South Africa wouldn't exist for decades. Peteet's article (which does not read like a work of high-quality scholarship) states that Zangwill "suggestion that to fashion a state free of non-
 * Jews would involve "race redistribution". It's Peteet who claims that this is redolent of South Africa, which is a ridiculous comparison given that South Africa was the governing power and the Zionists were not. So first, the paragraph is a gross misrepresentation of Zangwill's words and intent. Second, this not provide background to the current occupation, which began in 1967, because it is a POV and inaccurate read of history. Longhornsg (talk) 00:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I don't see how this is SYNTH since are you pointed out peteet makes this connection. Based on your response it sounds like your issue is with the choice of citing peteet's work, not that the deleted section has nothing to do with the occupation. In that case I suggest we revert the change and add a flag such as Better source needed DMH43 (talk) 00:35, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Peteet's opinion is used for one line, not the entire paragraph. In no way does this bless the entire paragraph as relevant. Longhornsg (talk) 19:23, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Toynbee's description is historical background on the occupation and associated territorial fragmentation. See for example Quigley, the question of palestine p. 21 DMH43 (talk) 19:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Again, how is Toynbee giving context to the post-1967 occupation? Longhornsg (talk) 22:56, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

it is not true that targeted assassinations are "almost exclusively in Gaza". Quite a lot since 1967 have been in the West Bank, especially during the intifadas, and there have been many even in the past few months. The topic obviously belongs. Zerotalk 01:00, 20 January 2024 (UTC)


 * That's not in this edit? Longhornsg (talk) 08:42, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, shouldn't have added that clause, was moving too fast. The question is how that section can be presented in a more NPOV way and included in a way that makes it relevant to the occupation, the latter of which I'm not seeing. Israel would make robust use of targeted killings regardless of whether there was an occupation (see Lebanon, Iran, etc). Longhornsg (talk) 08:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * It is erratically uninformed to assert any material referring to incidents prior to 1967 are to be excised on sight when articles like this naturally outline the background. (b) you took out a paragraph referenced to Peteet claiming the source did not make the connection there, which, as DMH43 noted, is contrafactual. (c) With that wake-up call you came back saying Peteet, a competent academic, got the history wrong, i.e. you know better than she does about the topic.(d) You come up with that old hare, the 'cherrypicked' quotation. All quotations are 'cherrypicked' when their content is disliked it is the weakest and most common battuta in the editwarrior's armoury. (e) The weird idea you have that Zangwill is anachronistic because apartheid didn't formally exist in institutional terms reflects a failure to read (i) Zangwill and (ii) what secondary sources, including Peteet, say about him, Israel and apartheid. Zangwill likened what was envisioned for the Palestinians under Zionism, i.e., their dispersion from the future territory, to the Boers' trek from Cape Colony. One could further burden the text by adding scholars who draw that precedent and analogy of course. I still need a further cup of tea.Nishidani (talk) 23:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Legal status: What's contested by Yoram Dinstein
The "Legal status" section claims that Yoram Dinstein contests two claims: However, the source cited (Galchinsky, 2004) only supports his contesting of the first claim. I've added a Failed verification template. Dotyoyo (talk) 09:53, 22 May 2024 (UTC)
 * 1) The Geneva Conventions do not apply;
 * 2) The transfer of people into the West Bank is voluntary.

Which UNGA resolution?
The article currently says "The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 established that force may not be used to deny self-determination, and that recourse to force to resist colonial or alien domination is legitimate." And then gives this quote by renowned scholar Richard Falk:

Falk gives the following reference: Abi-Saab, “Wars of National Liberation", p 416.

I think that's an error. On page 415-416 Abi-Saab quotes

That quote comes from United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV) (1970), not United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1514 (1960), as can be seen here. Abi-Saad mentions the 1960 and 1970 resolutions in quick succession (on page 414) so I can see why it may have been easy to make that error. I think it should be corrected in the article, given that 1514 doesn't talk about using force to achieve self-determination.VR (Please ping on reply) 02:44, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * There is an immense confusion or lack of clarity on the law applying to resistance, as one would expect since whatever provisions and protocols have been made, are fine-tuned by the competing interests of the former colonial powers who are still major actors geopolitically, and don't want their freedom to defend their interests in the world order hedged overly, and the pressures of relatively recently independant third world countries to find legitimacy for their own dynamics of liberation. It's pointless citing one historical resolution for 'armed struggle' when, for example, that 1974 language was dropped for 'all available means' in 1991, etc.etc.etc. The simplest solution is to paraphrase the whole of what Falk wrote in the source we have, and leave it at that, otherwise the qualifying details (which are absent also in the linked wikipedia articles), would require an extended footnote if not indeed a whole article to clarify. Falk wrote
 * "International law is silent on the rights of an occupied people to resist an occupation that flagrantly and persistently violates their most fundamental rights Such rights do seem to flow directly, however, from the general support given to the dynam ics of decolonization and from the related legitimacy of efforts by a colonized or oppressed people to engage in struggle, including armed struggle."
 * 'According to Richard Falk, international law is reticent regarding the rights to resistance of an occupied people, but that a right to resist an occupying power's flagrant violations of their rights does exist would appear to follow from the legitimacy accorded colonized peoples to resort to struggle, including armed struggle, against the colonizing power.' Something like that. Nishidani (talk) 13:36, 2 July 2024 (UTC)
 * "would require an extended footnote if not indeed a whole article to clarify": @Nishidani, I'm trying to do exactly that here. Any feedback is appreciated. I can also move this to mainspace and you can then edit directly.VR (Please ping on reply) 00:47, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well done! But take your time. I've bookmarked it and, whenever I get some free time, will certainly help. This kind of thing is not only intrinsically commendable but very promising for wiki. It's 4 am here, and I'm reading Christopher Ricks. It's hard to get some shuteye with prose like that, but sleep I must. Nishidani (talk) 01:56, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
 * One could also add an efn note reporting the text
 * The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2625 (XXV) of 1970 determined that: 'Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence. In their actions against, and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and to receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.'

Nishidani (talk) 13:48, 2 July 2024 (UTC)