Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Israel/archive1

my few cents for the FA review
shalom, first of all I want to congratulate the editors of this rich compact article, now I noticed that a lot have changed (for the better) since I read it for the first time so much so that many of my notes were made irrelevant, here is what remains : 1- in the lead: while minority religious groups include Muslims, Christians, Druze, Samaritans, most of whom are found within the Arab segment. the Samaritans are Jews (according to my opinion, nevertheless they are NOT Arabs) and the Druze do not consider themselves as 'Arabs' these are merely Arabic speakers and the Karaites ? 2- ''Independence and first years: ... Jordan annexed what became known as the West Bank and East Jerusalem'', may be add that Jerusalem under jordanian rule was rendered 'judenrein' 3- Foreign relations: France is excluded although she was the first supplier of military equipment -including the Dimona plant- and I think that the Vatican's recognition bears an important meaning 4- Defense: The United States is a particularly notable foreign contributor; they are expected to provide the country with US$30 billion in military aid between 2008 and 2017.[187] might be misleading, although it's stated in the reference that this money is to be spent buying US products -thus contributing to the maintenance of the US work force-, most people won't read it and only remember that the US support the IDF financially 5- Tourism: indicate that it is limited by hotels' room capacity, Israel is also a magnet for Bird watching tourism 6- Religion: are missing the Samaritan Jews and the Karaites (they are not mentioned in the main article Religion in Israel either) 7- Languages: 1) I recently heard on the Israel radio 2 that Yiddish and Ladino (actually Djudezmo) have been official languages of Israel for a while already --- 2) the official 'israeli sign language' is used by all (apart from the mentioned tribe) Israelis (be they Hebrew or Arabic speakers) 8- Culture: I suggest that this sentence : Israel's substantial Arab minority has also left its imprint on Israeli culture in such spheres as architecture,[278] music,[279] and cuisine.[280] be amended to show the impact of the Arab culture as a now a days reality, not past, beyond humus and belly dance there is a lot of theater plays, music  and songs, also stand-upistists (including women), and films, etc. a wide range of local non Jewish cultural production (the Arabs in Israel are pretty much alive and kicking) 9- I also wanted to mention that the Israeli borders are not yet defined, it seems that apart from the Mediterranean sea and the frontier with Egypt all of them are contentious : with Syria and Lebanon, and the Jordan River is not yet a border (pending the final status of the West Bank)

that's all for the moment, hope I have been of help, enjoy! --Hope&amp;Act3! (talk) 16:26, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * What happened to the previous review conversation?Cptnono (talk) 03:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * me too I was confused, it seems to me that all got archived --Hope&amp;Act3! (talk) 04:04, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That is what it looks like. I don;t know what protocol is on this so if one of the FAR following admins wants to chime in with the next step that is cool. And I don;t see any problems with your edits if they are sourced. The tourist stuff might be in the sub article already but it might be a big enough deal to be included in the main article (being thorough and all)Cptnono (talk) 04:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)


 * This is the talk page. The main discussion is on Featured article review/Israel/archive1. SlimVirgin  talk  contribs 22:17, 14 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Details can always be added, but I think the current article does a good job as it is. If you find some good sources for the things you mention, please add the information, or place them on the talk page for discussion.
 * Ladino and Yiddish are not official languages of Israel; I can't see any reason why they should be - very few people still speak them, and most of them are quite old. okedem (talk) 17:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

View wanted from established FA reviewers not associated with IP dispute.
In my comments to the review I have raised the issue as to whether the demographics section should contain some discussion of claimed inequalities between demographic groups along the lines of those found at Australia. User:Okedem and I have previously disagreed on this topic in the article talk page.

We both agree that there are claims of differences in status (economic, educational, health etc.) both between Arabs and Jews and between different Jewish groups. My belief is that there must have been sociological research, either analysis of census data or separate surveys, which should be reported in summary in the Israel article and discussed more deeply elsewhere. Okedem's belief is that much of what is claimed is either historic or just political propaganda e.g. by Shas to increase its support among its demographic group. While he is willing to have matters briefly discussed if someone else produces the sources, he doesn't consider the matter of sufficient importance to be necessary in a featured article.

Because a remove !vote by myself on this issue would have the appearance of advancing my side of a previous content dispute, I have simply expressed my view as a comment on the review page. However, I should appreciate third party views especially by editors who are not previous participants in the broader Israeli-Arab content battleground. Okedem is, of course, welcome to comment below is he thinks I have misrepresented our disagreement.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)