Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Israel/Archive 2

Palstinian Archaeology
An RfC has been opened regarding a proposed merge of a newly created article - Palestinian archaeology - into the existing articles of Biblical archaeology or Archaeology of Israel. Your input is welcome. Canadian Monkey (talk) 20:52, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, Biblical archaeology is a decent article. It also exists in other languages, and is an FA in Spanish and Portuguese. Archaeology of Israel is rather weak, and could benefit from a merge. Maybe Biblical archaeology should stay, while the other two could be merged into "Archaeology of Palestine and Israel" or something like that, to give a historical and political context of archaeology in the region. -- Nudve (talk) 08:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Note that the article's title has since been changed to Syro-Palestinian archaeology, often used in its stead.  T i a m u t talk 15:12, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Two problems that I see. The first is contradiction and potential for same between overlapping articles - In Syrio-Palestinian article it says that Albright is the father of Palestinian archeology etc. In Biblical archeology it mentions Flinders Petrie and Robinson who came before and were fathers of Biblical archeology. Does that imply that Syro-Palestinian arch. came after and is a separate discipline? Second is that the word Palestinian is always going to bring up political problems and it is inaccurate. If this discipline is not really recognized, then maybe it is better to call it "Levant" - Ugarith is part of the subject matter (Albright had a lot to say about the Ugarith MS) and that is not really "Palestine" which certainly didn't exist then and was to the south, and it is in a specific part of Syria. It is Phoenician (later) and Levantine.


 * For unfortunate political reasons Archeology of Palestine should not be merged with Archeology of Israel. The intention will be misunderstood. If the Arch. of Israel article is poor it should be fixed and material that specifically belongs to archeology (and Paleantology?) of Israel put there. Syro-Palestinian archeology states for some reason that Israeli archeology ignores non-biblical and non-Jewish finds. In view of the large amounts of Calcolithic period materials in Israel Museum as well as Byzantine etc. sites and other IAA activities this is fairly questionable.  Mewnews (talk) 01:45, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Kiryat Yam and Nakba
I was going to upload info on the Kiryat Yam debacle into a section on disinformation re: the "Nakba" (wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Palestinian_exodus). Someone has locked it and the talk page indicates that a few administrators are deliberately blocking people who try to fix the article, which has a heavy anti-Israel slant to it.

I also found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ani#Racism_on_http:.2F.2Fen.wikipedia.org.2Fw.2Findex.php.3Ftitle.3D1948_Palestinian_exodus.26action.3Dhistory, as well as the admins Riana and Krimpet who appear to be blocking anyone who speaks up opposing their behavior.

Krimpet additionally seems to like placing indefinite or super-long blocks: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&user=Krimpet

I'm afraid to edit based on what I am seeing. Is there any way to deal with these people to fix these articles at all? —Preceding unsigned comment added by No Oven For Me (talk • contribs) 15:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Tiamut has now threatened me based on my bringing forth concerns. This is precisely what I was worried about. Checking her contributions I also see her trying to attack me and cause the same things to happen. She appears involved with Riana and Krimpet on the nakba page as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by No Oven For Me (talk • contribs) 18:22, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This is in no way a threat. It was friendly advice designed to expose you to Wikipedia policies. Obviously, you did not read the link I provided you to WP:AGF, or else you would not be making these comments. As to this, I can understand how you might interpret that as an attack. But the similarity between your edits and those of that now banned member and your shared obsession with Krimpet and Riana made me feel that alerting others to you possibly being the same person was only prudent. If you are indeed a new and unrelated editor, I apologize for making you feel unwelcome. However, your continued edits pointing to the nefarious intentions of other editors bode badly for your future here. That is not a threat. Simply some sage advice to stop focusing on editors and instead get to writing article content using reliable sources. Thanks.  T i a m u t talk 18:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Due to concerns about not assuming good faith, I've informed No Oven For Me about the arbcom sanctions. Addhoc (talk) 18:41, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

It appears that the user User:No Oven For Me, despite having no article space edits and having been asking for advice on how to begin editing here, has been blocked by User:MastCell as a supposed sockpuppet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.146.249 (talk) 21:16, 13 February 2008 (UTC) I have placed a complaint in the aforementioned situation's WP:ANI area. The block of a user who came to this group seeking assistance to be a good editor, and was then blocked on Tiamut's insinuation, clearly fails WP:AGF and WP:BITE. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.7.146.249 (talk) 21:51, 13 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Don't blame Tiamut, and don't bother complaining. It was becoming clear that User:No Oven For Me was a troll. If she hadn't posted to WP:AN/I, I would have. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:00, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Adding a slideshow presentation link about the Incense Route in Israel
I would like to add a link on a slide show presentation about the Incense Route in Israel to several articles relevant to it(e.g. "The Incense Route in Israel", Avdat, Shivta, Petra, Nabatean etc.). After posting I got an automatic (?) rejection of the link and a note that I should ask permission to add it from this forum. Is this the right procedure? Can anybody suggest how I can add the link to those articles while not breaking any rules?

The presentation is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIFcmWymFH4

Thanks Ron RoneBennett (talk) 22:15, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The NPOV section
I fail to see the purpose of its existence except to attack those users who have different opinions than the one who wrote it. Let me just say that personal attacks and the calling for personal attacks will not be tolerated anywhere, anyplace in Wikipedia. I do not care if it belongs to part of a project page and what its members believe. NPA and NPOV is a fundamental Wikipedia policy, and if you fail to understand or to comply with it, then you should go to Conservapedia. Thank you. Herunar (talk) 12:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I think removing it was probably for the best. Statements such as "Please be vigilant to keep Israel fairly represented" are just an embarrasment to the project as they clearly show a pro-Israel bias. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  12:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair representation of a subject is not equal to being in favor of a subject. One can fairly represent the pro-choice stance on the abortion debate without being in favor of it.  Number 57's argument is a fallacy of equivocation.  --GHcool (talk) 16:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Afraid not. The meaning of the phrase I quoted is quite clear to all but the most blinkered: make sure Israel doesn't look bad. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:11, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I fail to see how representing a complex issue fairly is the same as representing a complex issue positively. The unstated major premise in Number 57's argument is that Israel cannot be represented fairly and neutrally without being represented positively.  This is clearly a false premise as anybody who has read the work of the New Historians will tell you.  The piece Number 57 is removing even says explicitly, "Do not be biased towards Israel, simply state facts," and, "Lastly, remember that not all criticisms of Israeli policy are anti-Semitic or necessarily wrong. Have enough courage to treat a true claim with respect, even if you do not agree with the claimer's conclusion.." --GHcool (talk) 16:18, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Putting the bias aside, there is no need for the section anyway as WP:NPOV is a general policy, not one specific to WP:Israel.  пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Besides, any contributor could simply go to the NPOV page. NPOV is universal. There is no need for a special kind of NPOV for Israel. Herunar (talk) 12:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you do not understand Wikipedia policies well, but a generally accepted rule is that you don't revert an edit when there's a discussion about it going on. This only creates an edit war, a simply phenomenon that you will surely understand. If you wish to proceed with your arguments about logic, I could join you. I could probably point out the significant difference between neutrality and the following sentence: "Remember that most of these people are just ignorant beyond reason and that you must not stoop to their level." Or perhaps I could argue the difference between NPOV and and the need to represent something "positively". I could point out that, as Hitler taught us, the truth is often a bias. I could argue that the New Historians has nothing to do with Wikipedia policies. But these arguments will ultimately become a giant war over words, and frankly I do not see a point. Herunar (talk) 12:23, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I've already accepted Number 57's argument that NPOV is a universal policy and reprinting it here is redundant. It was a good argument.  Herunar's argument is not as good and the fact that Hitler taught him that truth is biased frightens me and makes me suspicious of the philosophy with which Herunar understands the world around him/her.  --GHcool (talk) 16:20, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * When I meant "taught", I meant what we learnt from history about the difference between the truth and Hitler's truth. Instead of being suspicious of my personal world, my advice is that you take an English course. Herunar (talk) 15:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Hitler told lies, not a "different version of the truth." Instead of making ambiguous statements that make yourself look bad, I suggest that you take a philosophy course. --GHcool (talk) 16:41, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
 * What philosophy course? What makes me look bad, picking on etymologies, quoting words that aren't spoken, or insult the personal lives of other users in a discussion, sir? Herunar (talk) 16:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Israel: Articles of unclear notability
Hello,

there are currently 11 articles in the scope of this project which are tagged with notability concerns. I have listed them here. (Note: this listing is based on a database snapshot of 2008-03-12 and may be slightly outdated.)

I would encourage members of this project to have a look at these articles, and see whether independent sources can be added, whether the articles can be merged into an article of larger scope, or possibly be deleted. Any help in cleaning up this backlog is appreciated. For further information, see WikiProject Notability.

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the Notability project page or on my personal talk page. (I'm not watching this page however.) Thanks! --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Notability question
I'd like to have some thoughts on the notability of a certain subject. I wish to create an article on Shaul Reznik, a Russian Israeli poet and translator, who is notable for translating and performing many Russian folk songs into Hebrew. A quick Google search turns up over 5,000 hits in English alone. However, this is unfortunately misleading, as most of those links are to places where you can download his songs, etc. Also he seems to be a frequent internet user and has accounts on sites like livejournal and youtube (maybe Wikipedia?). I have also not seen a single major 3rd party source say anything about him. All of this puts his notability into question. What are your thoughts? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:38, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Bibliography of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
new list. I don't see the point of it, but it seems that these bibiliography lists are actually legit pages. Well, this one's loaded on one side, I suppose that if anyone has read anything, it should be added as well. --Shuki (talk) 17:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Tel Aviv FAC
Hi there. I am currently on the third nomination for Tel Aviv as an FAC. The biggest issue which people continue to bring up is the referencing especially of global scale claims. Whilst I can appreciate that these are controversial, I feel that referencing them as I have done - to international media sources as well as books, is enough. When I look at other FA city articles, this article is at the same level, if not above, many. Whilst some, such as NYC are far beyond this, this article surely does beat many in that category. I cant help but feel that there, perhaps from some users, is some hesitancy to support this article because it is Israel. Whenever I fix an issue, either people continue to find it an issue, or new ones are found. I was told at one point that New York being known as city which never sleeps versus Tel Aviv having this same title is a non-starter. I dont know if its me being pedantic, or if there is some real inconsistency here. I quote from one of my replies to an opposition: "The NYC article has references from a consulate, this wasnt ok for the TA one, when you look at other FA cities articles, going through the category from A - the first one, Ahmedabad, has 40 citations, the second city, Alanya, has refs which arent acceptable here, the third, Ann Arbor, Michigan has a very short lead, and refs from travel and other sources which arent acceptable here". Id really appreciate it if someone could check this out. Thanks. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 15:11, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe what they're looking for is some textbooks. Virtually all the refs on this article are websites. An FA usually contains a bit of comparative research. Do you (or anyone else here) have any books on Tel Aviv? -- Nudve (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I have the 30-page entry from the Ariel Encyclopedia, if that helps. It was published years ago though, there's no modern info of any kind. However, it wouldn't be too difficult to procure more books at the library, but I wouldn't want to go there for nothing and will need specifics. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:05, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the speedy replies. I think there are 3/4 claims which people dont like the referencing on - its the global claims:
 * The city having the largest collection/concentration of Bauhaus buildings in the world.
 * Jaffa being thought to be the oldest/one of the oldest ports in the world (maybe in Ariel encyclopedia?)
 * Less of an issue is "Israel is claimed to have the highest number of museums per capita of any country, three of the largest of which are in Tel Aviv."
 * I also removed a claim about teh Batsheva being Israel's best known dance troupe but this could come back in if there is a ref.
 * I'm not sure if putting 'is claimed' before the statements will suffice at least until we find something. I think these are just too crucial to 'let go' as they are key in the article. Thanks for this. 17:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I don't have Ariel's entry on Jaffa (which should be longer than the one on Tel Aviv). When I have time, I will go to the library and acquire said pages. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 09:41, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * A quick search on Google books found a Bauhaus reference: On page 162. Here's the link -- Nudve (talk) 09:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Do you think this one will be ok? Ive referenced it to books before and people are sayign that it must go to a Bauhaus publication which mentions it sort of thing (as I understand it). Thanks. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 10:39, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Gee, that's strict. Well, this book is a research published by Stanford University Press, hardly a shabby publishing house. Could you ask at the review page if it's ok? -- Nudve (talk) 11:43, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I will do. I find the standards being applied here to be unlike any other article I've seen anywhere. I just saw an opposition which said that Tel Aviv cant be known as the City That Never Sleeps. When I asked him before about this, he said that NYC is a different ball game. To me it feels like double standards - I will ask and see what happens. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 12:24, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm afraid I'm with the naysayers on the "City That Never Sleeps" issue. Placed in the intro, it's rather off-putting. I'd move it to the culture section and phrase it as something like "A memorable PR slogan has dubbed Tel Aviv "City That Never Sleeps". Sounds more professional. -- Nudve (talk) 12:47, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * OK - Ive done that - if you could take a look at some of the comments on the review page, Id really appreciate it because if you compare this to other FA city articles, it seems much better. Flymeoutofhere (talk) 12:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding the Global City issue, I think the "despite" is problematic. Is Tel Aviv's age relevant? Is it exceptional for such a young city to be recognized? Plus, a link to the GaWC would be welcome, and a specification as to when it was nominated. I'll review the entire article when I have more time. -- Nudve (talk) 13:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions (Hebrew) - for the upteenth time
Yes, we're back on that subject again - after nearly 3 years of trying fruitlessly to create this important guideline for Wikipedia, and in fact operating by an unwritten draft thereof for a couple years now, I've finally formulated a final draft which seems to encompass the general consensus. Just notifying everyone about it (link: Naming conventions (Hebrew) (WP:HE)). If there are no major objections, we can finally turn this into an actual guideline, wow! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 21:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Overlap of WikiProject Palestine and WikiProject Israel
Please discuss here WT:WikiProject Palestine -- Avi (talk) 18:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Waiting period (Six-Day War)
I've posted it at Talk:Six-Day War but got no reply. The article itself has not been edited for two years, so I doubt if anyone watches it, so I thought I'd post it here. Anyway, the article has a lot of problems, and is not referred to in Six-Day War. It has some overlap with the war article, but also some additional info. Any thoughts on what's to be done with it? -- Nudve (talk) 13:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it is worth having as an article - the Hebrew wiki has one: he:תקופת ההמתנה. However, I would severely cut down the military moves bit (which is covered in the main article) and concentrate on the political stuff. A brief description could be inserted into the "Background" section of the Six-Day War article, possibly between the "Israel and Syria" and "Withdrawal of UN Forces" sections пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  13:54, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree. Do you have any good sources for it? -- Nudve (talk) 14:05, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No - I'd never heard of it until you brought it up. However, the Hebrew article does have two external links to Yediot articles on the topic. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:12, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Translation of Hebrew source titles
User:Ynhockey recently edited an article I created and translated titles from Hebrew newspapers I cited into English. I don't have a problem with that. In fact, I wouldn't mind doing that myself. My question is: Is that our policy? -- Nudve (talk) 04:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure if there is a relevant policy, but I tend to do it both for the benefit of readers (so they can see the title of the referenced article/book) and because sometimes the reflist system messes up right-to-left text so that Hebrew/Arabic references don't appear correctly - looking at the original version of the article, the Hebrew text is unreadable in places because the external link overlaps the source name (at least on my non-Hebrew enabled computer). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. My concern was for the "purity of sources" and of mistranslating them. But if they're unclear, I guess I'll translate them. Thanks. -- Nudve (talk) 11:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Like Number 57, I don't think there's a policy or guideline specifically about source titles, but I believe it's in the general spirit of WP:UE (Use English) - except in rare places where the source title's translation can be highly disputed and loaded (esp. in I-P conflict articles), I don't think there's any reason not to translate the titles. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:06, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Dolphinarium massacre
It appears that a user named Imad marie is unilaterally trying to move Dolphinarium massacre to Dolphinarium bombing. He claims that 'massacre' is a loaded term and it should be changed to something more neutral, similar to the Gaza beach blast (2006). He has not commented on my question of whether he'd also have Deir Yassin massacre renamed to Battle of Deir Yassin for the sake of NPOV. My personal position is of course that we should leave all of these articles as is, and that the Gaza bleach blast was not a massacre (according to the question simple to understand definition of massacre, in my opinion). There is a discussion taking place at Talk:Dolphinarium massacre. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, we wouldn't want a "loaded term" that suggests that anyone might have died, or anything -- much less a bunch of teenagers out for a night of dancing, who paid with their lives for their crime of being Israelis. Welcome to Wikipedia, where there are no terrorists and no massacres -- at least not where one certain favored group is concerned.  6SJ7 (talk) 21:59, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia the favored group is the group with the best reliable sources. Wikipedia is not supposed to rewrite history, but to document it.
 * I personally agree that the word "massacre" is very appropriate here, but for a stronger "case" for this name an external source calling it a massacre would be helpful. Currently all sources that are cited in the article and available online are Israeli, which makes them biased. Searching google for "Dolphinarium massacre" -site:wikipedia.org also finds mostly Israeli sources.
 * So, again - i agree that it was a massacre, but i am Israeli myself, so i can hardly have a NPOV. --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 22:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Revisionist Zionism
There appears to be a (very badly structured) argument about renaming this article on its talk page. Interested editors might want to join in at the bottom. пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  16:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * User:Ludvikus moved it once (to Revisionism (Zionism)), and I moved it back. Now he's trying to argue his case on the Talk page. As you can tell, he's very confused. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 16:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I share both your minds on this issue.
 * When there are hundreds of references to Revisionist Zionism in google books, that is not 'enough' for him but it seems there is only 1 web reference to On The Jewish Question (with a T and not t) and that is enough to keep the article that way... I may lack information but that sounds a little bit confused. Ceedjee (talk) 21:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Request for help on article
I've been working on an article about a ship, USS Princess Matoika (ID-2290), a World War I-era U.S. Navy transport ship that was later purchased by the American Palestine Line. They briefly ran service from New York–Haifa on this ship—under the name of SS President Arthur—in the mid 1920s. The company officials were all reported as supporters of Zionism, and the ship itself flew the Zionist Flag (which, as far as I can determine, is essentially the Flag of Israel) while at sea. Not being Jewish, I'd like to make sure the article is WP:NPOV in regards to present-day names and/or terminology, since most of my sources were contemporary news accounts of the send-off for its maiden voyage and its other two voyages. The specific section of the article is entitled American Palestine Line. I posted this same message at WikiProject Jewish History and it was recommended that I post this here as well. Thanks in advance. — Bellhalla (talk) 20:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Dear Bellhalla,
 * Thanks for consulting us! Here are a few small notes:
 * "reportedly the first ever Jewish steamship company" — "steamship company owned and operated by Jews" might be better. This remove any ambiguity (the steamship company does not practice the Judaism).
 * The title of "rabbi" ought to be capitalized in proper names (such as "Rabbi Stephen S. Wise" and "Rabbi David de Sola Pool").
 * "American Palestine Line president Jacob S. Strahl in his remarks made the dubious claim that the sailing of President Arthur marked the first appearance 'in more than 2,000 years of the flag of Judea on the high seas'." — I'm not sure if this claim is dubious. Is this original research? Ask the Wikiproject Jewish History people about this, but it seems like a credible claim to me.
 * "comprised of delegations from many of the Jewish colonies in Palestine" — There were no Jewish colonies in Palestine. There were some areas/cities/villages with larger Jewish populations than others.  Referring to the Jewish halutzim as "colonists" and speaking about Israel/Palestine as though it were a "colony" in the Western European mold is highly controversial.
 * Excellent work. I look forward to when this becomes a featured article! --GHcool (talk) 20:37, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The original source, The New York Times, uses the term Jewish colonies. ("Welcome committees from Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tel Aviv and from every Jewish colony in Palestine.") They may have been referring to kibbutzim and moshavim, agricultural settlements, but reading something into an 80-year-old newspaper article might be WP:OR. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 20:55, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Jewish towns and villages in Palestine were often referred to as colonies before the 1940s, so I can see why such an old article uses the term. I agree with GHcool that today, this term is highly loaded (especially in the Israeli context), and should be avoided at all costs. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 21:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Per the suggestion above, I've made these changes:
 * I capitalized rabbi used as a title.
 * I changed "reportedly the first ever Jewish steamship company" to "reportedly the first ever steamship company owned and operated by Jews" per recommendation
 * I changed the phrase from "comprised of delegations from many of the Jewish colonies in Palestine" to "comprised of delegations from Jerusalem, Jaffa, Tel Aviv"
 * I had a source for the "dubious" characterization of the claim, but can't lay my hands on it right this minute, so I've removed "dubious" from the sentence.
 * Thanks for the comments. One reason I brought it to attention here was to not have any controversy (as potentially with the "colony" thing). Any other suggestions are quite welcome. — Bellhalla (talk) 22:31, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If you want to mention the large number of delegations, "Jewish communities" may be a good synonym. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:38, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Great job, Bellhalla, and thanks again for contacting us! --GHcool (talk) 23:08, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

RfC on Yerida
User:PalestineRemembered is asking for an request for comments on whether it the yerida article ought to include Jewish history denial. I welcome anybody here to comment, and perhaps add the mainstream account of Jewish history into the article. --GHcool (talk) 17:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Dispute on Israel Defense Forces article
A user named PalestineRemembered is trying to insert a broad elaboration of Breaking The Silence's (a semi-notable Israeli NGO which consists of some anti-war former soldiers) criticism of the IDF into Israel Defense Forces. I am arguing that the elaboration does not satisfy WP:UNDUE (although I don't mind if the NGO is mentioned briefly, like the other organizations in that article that criticize the IDF). I think, just like in the main Israel article, this article is also not about criticism, and criticism should make up a small part of it, except possibly some extremely notable events (although those should have main articles). Information about Breaking The Silence's criticism can be put into Breaking The Silence, which is 100% appropriate because the organization deals only with criticism against the IDF. I made a few more arguments on the talk page, and would appreciate your comments: Talk:Israel Defense Forces. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:03, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

September 11th reactions
Someone is trying to add a clumsily worded statement made by Benjamin Netanyahu in 2008 that makes it look like he believes that the 9/11 attacks were good for Israel in the Reactions to the September 11, 2001 attacks article. All of the other incidents quoted in the article occurred immediately following the attacks. I invite anyone who is so inclined to join the discussion here. --GHcool (talk) 19:35, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Category deletion
I'm not posting this in the deletion sorting project, because I don't think it's meant for categories. In any case, I have proposed Category:Coastal cities in Israel for deletion. Please give your thoughts on the issue here. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Deir Al-Zahrani massacre
The so called "article" is a total nonsence, full of propaganda and copyright violation. The article was first written on Persian wikipedia by the same user, but later it was deleted bcause of Notability guidelines. The user now just wrote the article in English wikipedia and then just re-wrote the article again in Persian wikipedia, claiming it is a "masacre" where can't even find his source on the net which claims to be Human Rights watch!

I would appreciate if some of you would follow on this. --Kaaveh (talk) 17:56, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Liga Leumit 1966-68
I thought this article might make an interesting Did you know? snippet (as according to the Hebrew wiki, it was played over two years due to corruption and increasing violance during matches (I had assumed it was because the war interrupted the season, but anyway...)). However, I can't seem to find any information out about it beyond the league table and top scorer. Can anyone find any sources (probably in Hebrew) to expand it beyond the 1,500 character minimum? Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  00:53, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The best source I've found so far is this Bnei Yehuda site which claims to cite a book on the subject. Can it be considered an RS? -- Nudve (talk) 06:27, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see why not - official websites of football clubs are often cited in articles. Could anyone translate the important stuff across - I'm not to good on long passages of writing. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  10:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I pretty much added the main info. It's not that clear without context. For example, who were he "relegated players". Also, the article might need to be copyedited. -- Nudve (talk) 12:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've copyedited it. I assume the relegated players are those playing for the two clubs who were relegated the previous season, but I'm not going to add this to the article unless someone can confirm. Thanks for the help. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  23:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Ancient Pre-history of "Biblical" Warfare
Is the subject discussed in this web page sufficient for inclusion in the Israel portal?? I am new and completely inexperienced in this area--- http://www.imninalu.net/Habiru.htm MirandaAnique71.186.11.85 (talk) 02:20, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the best place to discuss warfare is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. -- Nudve (talk) 13:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Category:Yishuv haYashan?
Could someone that knows more about the area / religious issues have a look at the new Category:Yishuv haYashan and see if that seems OK/relevant as a classification for the cities its got in it (one of the articles that's now in it was on my watchlist because of something else, and I wasn't quite sure)? -Hunting dog (talk) 16:36, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Mass-creation of locality articles
As some of the older Wikipedians here may recall, there used to be a bot which auto-created stubs for US location article (I think also with a locator map!) - that's how there are thousands of them. It seems that recently, a bot was created and is being tested to do the same for many other countries, including Israel. For those wondering, this is why the user Blofeld of SPECTRE re-categorized all cities into Cities, towns and villages in Israel (I oppose this, but that's not the point of this post - read on).

As you can guess, there will be certain obvious problems with this bot, even though its work will help overall, and the intention is clearly good. The most glaring problem is article naming - it will certainly create articles with ridiculous transliterations, some articles about neighborhoods which it will assume are villages, and many problems inherent in bots. Here is the source for its data, by the way.

While I won't act to stop this bot unless there's a sizable majority in favor (not just on this WikiProject), I suggestion a course of action which should minimize its harmful effects. Namely, that in the following weeks we collaborate on creating as many Israeli locality articles as possible. Of course, quality shouldn't be substituted for quantity (in that case we'd be as bad as the bot). If we even create 100 articles, compared to the 1,100 that the bot aims to create, I'll consider it a great achievement (and believe we all should).

So, if you want to create an Israel-related article soon - I ask to please consider creating one about a location as opposed to other topics, which can wait (for now). Thanks, Ynhockey (Talk) 18:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Two basic sources which should be included in each article for localities with 1,000+ residents (IMO) are this and this (click on locality). Additionally, if someone wants pages from the Ariel Encyclopedia to work on certain articles, I'll gladly provide them (in private). Thanks again, Ynhockey (Talk) 18:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * There are semi-automatically created lists of articles about Israeli localities in the Hebrew Wikipedia, which don't have an article in other Wikipedias. If you speak Hebrew and want to participate in this project, consider using these lists:
 * he:ויקיפדיה:דפים ללא בינוויקי/יישובים בישראל
 * he:ויקיפדיה:דפים ללא בינוויקי/יישובים ברשות הפלסטינית
 * he:ויקיפדיה:דפים ללא בינוויקי/יישובים דרוזיים בישראל
 * he:ויקיפדיה:דפים ללא בינוויקי/יישובים ערביים בישראל
 * (These lists are not supposed to be encyclopedic categories. For more info on how they were created see WikiProject Interlanguage Links/Ideas from the Hebrew Wikipedia.) --Amir E. Aharoni (talk) 18:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm wondering if, with how bad some of those transliterations are (e.g. Qiryat HaTekhniyyon), that the bot might actually create copies of articles we already have because it doesn't realise that they exist under the proper spelling. This could be a major issue if it's going to duplicate hundreds of articles. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  22:10, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment: I don't like the changes user:Blofeld of SPECTRE made to the categorization. As for the blitz in creating articles which some may not work anyways with the transliteration, what exactly is this bot culling? I'd help but I'd imagine it would be much help. Epson291 (talk) 04:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Number 57 may be right. Maybe it's best to let the bot finish its surge, and then delete copies, rename the new ones according to the MOS, and work it from there. -- Nudve (talk) 13:37, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Any news from this front? When is the bot supposed to make its move? -- Nudve (talk) 13:09, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It appears that it did a 100-article test run, but there's no indication as to when it will really start. I'll ask User:Fritzpoll about it. So far I've created a few articles on Israeli towns and Number 57 has contributed some as well. I strongly urge everyone else to start creating these articles with (it's not really that hard, and if you only write a couple lines with proper structure, I'll gladly expand it). -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:14, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm still not sure I understand exactly why it's so important to create an article before the bot does it. -- Nudve (talk) 15:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

It would appear that there will be a chance to check and correct names before the bot is run. See this main page, and I would suggest adding WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/Places/israel to your watchlist for when/if it is created. This will allow us to go through and correct the spellings or create redirects to articles at alternative transliterations. пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  22:00, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Also, in case someone hasn't noticed the ad, there's a discussion going on about the bot at the village pump, here -- Nudve (talk) 04:22, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Number 57: I contacted Fritzpoll, and that's pretty much what he said. Before creating the actual articles, he will post the list here, so that we can correct and improve it. That's good to hear, although it won't solve all problems. By the way, I wanted to talk to you about something on IM, if you have time.
 * Nudve: First of all, thanks for the link. I didn't know about this discussion, and will enter my vote soon. As for why creating articles is needed, there are a few reasons. The way I see it, the bot isn't very smart (obviously), so it will certainly make mistakes, and I am hoping to avoid situations where it repeats the same mistake for 1,100 articles. Fritzpoll clearly stated that the bot can be tweaked for each country, therefore if we create for example articles on all local councils and cities, we can seriously limit the bot's scope, so that it will be more focused and therefore more accurate/human-like. But in general, it's just best if we can reduce the bot's 'list' as much as possible, in order to have more human-created articles. Not sure how you imagine the bot will work, but I'm almost sure that it will be just as hard fixing its quirks as creating the articles from scratch (you can create a template in notepad for creatings articles anyway, similar to a bot).
 * As I said before, I think the bot will be damaging, but on the other hand some articles on Israeli localities won't be manually created for years to come, so I guess the bot's work is acceptable - let's just reduce the damage by creating as many articles as we can. I really wish I had more time to work on this stuff.
 * -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:50, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I see your point. According to the latest proposal, the bot will contact the relevant WikiProjects before starting to work on a country. Would you suggest working according to the lists provided by Amir E. Aharoni above? -- Nudve (talk) 18:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, now that I look at it, the Hebrew category for Israeli settlements without inerwiki isn't very up to date. Many of them actually have interwiki (although not necessarily in English. I've found one with an article in Polish). -- Nudve (talk) 18:35, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The list that Amir Aharoni provided is a good start, but personally I don't need a list, and have stopped basing any settlement info on the Hebrew Wikipedia anyway, which is often inaccurate. Also, we have so far created templates for most, if not all, districts and regional councils, therefore you can just follow the red links one by one :) Of course someone should also contact the guys at the HeWiki project and inform them of the many new articles created in English, Polish, Romanian, etc. (the most common ones). -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:32, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * By the way, now that we agreed on the course of action regarding the bot, do you think we should start reverting Blofeld's categorization of everything into 'cities, towns and village in Israel'? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
 * On the face of it, that does seem like a good idea, although maybe we should ask Fritzpoll all the same.
 * By the way: Is there a reason why Template:Infobox Kibbutz and Template:Infobox moshav don't have a picture (and caption) slot? It seems like there are plenty free images of kibbutzim and moshavim available (or at least obtainable). -- Nudve (talk) 13:46, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure about a picture, but I think a map might be nice (like נבטים (מושב)). Also, I have redirected Infobox moshav to Infobox Kibbutz as it is exactly the same template bar its name, and I have been using the kibbutz one for moshavim for a while. If anyone thinks this is stupid, perhaps we can rename it (though there remains the issue of the fill in line which demands "kibbutz_name"). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:26, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The Hebrew infobox has both a picture and a map. The thing about the map is that it's very big, which often makes the infobox far longer than the text prose. Not a real problem, but it makes the article look even stubbier than it is. -- Nudve (talk) 14:55, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The problem is the bloody awkward shape of the country - why couldn't it be long on its east-west axis ;) пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  19:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, well...:) -- Nudve (talk) 19:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Blofeld's change
Started section in order to avoid confusion with the already long previous one; in reply to Nudve: As I see it, because Fritzpoll's bot will be tweaked for each country, and it's not expected to create any cities/local councils anyway because those will be removed from the list and hand-made (we have less than 5 left, I think, don't need a bot for that). Considering that Blofeld only re-categorized cities as far as I can tell, it shouldn't be a problem to revert. On a side note, I lament the keeping of 'coastal cities in Israel' category. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:44, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I suppose you can revert, then. -- Nudve (talk) 06:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Status Quo Letter
Asides from not citing any sources, couldn't it be merged into Religion in Israel? -- Nudve (talk) 11:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm ambivalent on this issue. On the other hand, the subject's notability seems dubious, and the article doesn't cite sources, but on the other hand, this letter affects Israeli society so much even today, that its notability is guaranteed compared to many other Israel-related subjects on Wikipedia, which are practically not known and don't affect anyone. Maybe there should be a fork of Religion in Israel dealing with the secular-religious relationship. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 08:22, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The Religion in Israel article has a section on the status quo. -- Nudve (talk) 09:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah I saw that. Still, I believe that an article on secular-religious relations can be created. The letter itself might not be notable enough, but the relations in general are. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 09:06, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I've suggested a merge. If there's no response in a couple of days (or a drastic improvement to the article), I think I'll propose deletion. -- Nudve (talk) 09:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * A merge + redirect is fine for the time being, I think. Although I'm personally against AfDs most of the time, so it's just my opinion of course. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 09:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

You Don't Mess with the Zohan
I added a "Cultural context" section to the article for this Adam Sandler film, which just came out in the United States. I took the information from a review by John Podhoretz but editors in this project might find it interesting to look at, add to or even dispute. The movie is said to have many Israeli cultural references, and perhaps editors here have seen good sources that I haven't. Noroton (talk) 20:11, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

CfD needs some attention
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2008_June_1#Palestine_categories

Cheers,  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  07:18, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Israeli terrorists
User:Notika who's only contribution to this project so far is insertion of Israeli terrorist and Jewish terrorism categories (and by coincidence userboxes supporting "the complete destruction of the State of Israel"  etc.) is actively expressing his views by inserting terrorist categories to Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, IDF etc articles. Any volunteers to discuss these changes? I don't know if he will be willing to find consensus on talk pages of relevant articles, because he haven't done single talk page edit so far, but let's give WP:AGF a chance. M0RD00R (talk) 19:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have issued a moderate tempalte warning on his talk page. If he continues, we can proceed with the standard warning procedure and then request for block at AIV. I support giving WP:AGF a chance, but if that fails, the standard AIV procedure for anons can be applied to this new user as well. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:31, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. lots of WP:AGF will be needed here . M0RD00R (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Obviously the IDF thing is horribly POV, but surely Begin and Shamir are legitimately classified as terrorists, as they were labelled so by the British authorities during the Mandate Era. Perhaps they should be in Category:Jewish terrorism or Category:People convicted on terrorism charges instead of Category:Israeli terrorists, as they weren't classed as such once they became Israelis (rather than just Jews living in Palestine). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  20:03, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Not so. Some people who are classified as terrorist by nearly all conutries, such as Hassan Nasrallah, are not classified as such on Wikipedia. Great care needs to be taken before classifying someone as a terrorist, especially when he later becomes a head of government or state. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:08, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the difference is that Begin and Shamir were labelled terrorists by the people running the country, whereas Nasrallah is probably not labelled as such in Lebanon (just abroad). Then again, I can see what you're saying - we'd have to put Nelson Mandela in such a category too...  пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  20:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
 * What about Irgun? -- Nudve (talk) 04:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe, but I think it should be discussed. It is problematic to put that category for organizations which later became legitimate forces (see Fatah), although in general the past terrorist designation would fairly put the Irgun in that category. The case is not clear-cut and for now I have reverted Notika's edit. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Another category issue
User:LamaLoLeshLa has added "Category:Political corruption" and "Category:Political scandals" to Ariel Sharon, Avigdor Lieberman and Ehud Olmert. I've removed them from Ariel Sharon, but maybe that was wrong. Any thoughts? -- Nudve (talk) 09:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I have opened a discussion about it also on Talk:Avigdor Lieberman. In short, I believe that only those convicted of corruption should have this category. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:44, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Conviction is a possible criterion, but even that might be too weak - After all, the category is not "People convicted of corruption charges". IMO, these categories are meant for terms and events, not people. They should only be applied to people who are notable for only one event - a corruption scandal. -- Nudve (talk) 11:55, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

some advice on "Aliyah to Israel and settlement" table
Hi eveyone,

I'd like to take your advice on the "Aliyah to Israel and settlement" table,

The creator of this table, has translated this table from the Hebrew wikipedia (I've seen it on one of the talk pages, if I'm not mistaken on the table's talk page), yet the table is not complete - it lacks of the "pre-Zionist" movement list of Aliya.

so, there fore I would like to change the table, in order to create future links to articles that I would like to translate, and the changes in the table, that I would like to make is as follows:

(if you click on the English article of Pre-Zionist Aliyah, then link to its Hebrew article, you will be able to see the Hebrew table that I've taken it from):

yet, once I make those changes, I would be deleting, from the table's list, the link to the Yishuv haYashan (the old Yishuv) English article, that in the English Wikipedia's Article consist of many of the contents of the articles I want to add to the list, yet, the content of the English "old Yishuv", does not deal with the issues of the "old yishuv", but rather focuses on the articles I would like to add to the table's list.

so, before making those changes in the table, you need to change the content of the English article of "old Yishuv", in a way that will deal with the issues that concern the "old Yishuv" (Hence, I would like to translate it from the Hebrew wikipedia), and leave the current content of the English article of "Old Yishuv" to be dealt with the articles that I will add in the table (as the changes I am offering to the table above), and I will translate them as well.

I've already translated one article from Hebrew wikipedia to English, "Gathering of Israel", it was a candidate for AFD, and by rewriting it, I saved the subject.

What do you guys think?

--Shevashalosh (talk) 06:36, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation help needed
Can anyone help me evaluate the claims made here? They're dependent on a document in Hebrew, and I don't know if it says what the other editor says, and I don't know if the source is reliable. Thanks.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 22:31, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The "Judenrat" publication is referred to in the verdict as "the second publication". The "third publication" is a series of letters of condolences Plaut had supposedly sent to Gordon regarding the death of Mohammed Deif. Takdin is a reliable source of Israeli legal cases. -- Nudve (talk) 06:34, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah, good. Thanks for the help!--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 16:18, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Nitzan query
In the Hebrew wiki, the Nitzan article states that it was founded in 1949. However, the Nitzanim and Nitzanim Youth Village articles state that Nitzan was founded at the end of the 1990s on the land of the latter. Which one is true? Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  20:50, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * They are referring to different things, although the article on Nitzan on HeWiki is misleading. It says that the first settlement on the land was made in 1949, which is technically true - it was the Nitzanim Youth Village. The youth village was closed in 1990, and a few years later Nitzan was founded on the same grounds. I hope that helps. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 21:39, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's exactly what I needed, though from the Nitzanim article it appears that the first settlement on the site was actually in 1943 (the original location of Nitzanim before being moved after the War of Independence). Does anyone happen to know the exact year that the new Nitzan was founded? Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  21:57, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Righteous Among the Nations template
The Righteous Among the Nations template has been the subject of some debate on its talk page. Although progress has been made, there remains disagreement concerning the order of Righteous Among the Nations by country, the inclusion of Twentieth convoy in lieu of an article on the Belgian Righteous Among the Nations, and the absence of a link to Chinese Righteous Among the Nations.

Input would very much be appreciated. The discussion begins under Order" and continues under "My proposal". 99.242.171.73 (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Naming conventions (settlements)
I think the project should decide on a standard convention for Israeli localities. The above link, relates that the common format is X, Y, but that this is not a rule worldwide. The primary goal of this naming convention is to achieve consistency within each country. Various settlements are dabbed with kibbutz, village, moshav, etc... and there is an opinion to blanketly rename them all either X, Israel or X, West Bank, both of which I disagree with. Notwithstanding, the Palestinian localities have been renamed from X, West Bank to X, 'governate'. --Shuki (talk) 22:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the method we used until recently was great, not sure why it was changed. Basically, IMO it should be X, Israel for all localities within Israel proper, and X (city), X (town) or X (village)/(moshav)/(kibbutz)/etc. for localities in the West Bank and Golan Heights. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 06:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * According to the naming convention, WP:PLACES, using (town) or (village) is deprecated - see Naming conventions (places). The current method is "ShortName, HigherDivision". In this case Judea and Samaria Area is the higher division. However, I felt that using such a term would be an NPOV violation, as it is a controversial name in itself. I do not feel "West Bank" is a POV title - it is the most widely used (WP:COMMONNAME) term for the geographic area, and unlike using "Israel" or "Palestine", I don't see how it presents POV problems.
 * Regarding the Golan Heights, using HigherDivision (e.g. XXX, North District (Israel)) may also be POV. However, using XXX, Golan Heights would mean we are using both the common name for the area, the Israeli regional council name and staying with NPOV. This could be expanded to settlements in the West Bank if for some reason people object to my suggestion for that, e.g. Matityahu, Mateh Binyamin instead of Matityahu, West Bank. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  07:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to provide some clarification - despite the statement above, the common format is generally Settlement, not Settlement, Higher Jurisdiction, although some countries (i.e. USA, Australia) do favour the latter. However, most conventions for other nations only use disambiguation where it is necessary to avoid conflict with other article titles.  It would appear that avoiding disambiguation would perhaps avoid some POV debates.  Skeezix1000 (talk) 16:09, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to clarify - we are only talking about cases when disambiguation is needed - other ones are fine as they are. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:53, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I would suggest reading the section 57 keeps refering too, the section immediately after it, as well as other 'naming convention' pages. It is repeatedly written that these are conventions, not the rule, and that they might not be suitable for all countries. Most important is keeping consistancy within each country.
 * I suggest that moving all X (kibbutz) pages to X, Israel is a poor option. The reason for the dab is that usually both places exist within Israel anyway, there are no provinces. I would also oppose X, South District since no one really uses this administrative definition.
 * Using the term West Bank is forcing a title onto a locality of which the residents, and the parent country simply do not use. Leaving X, (village) is the most NPOV since renaming them X, (settlement) leads to more confusion IMO since the term 'settlement' is a totally WP generic term to describe localities except when it comes to Israeli settlements. 57, your suggestion for X, Mateh Binyamin might be logical, but renaming three (town)s the Shomron RC to X, Shomron (or Samaria) might cause a conflict since there seems to be a general claim on WP that using Judea and Samaria is POV, but I suppose that it's pointless to bring up that argument about names used thousands of years before the name 'West Bank' was introduced.


 * To avoid conflict, we could simply make all these pages top level in the disambig, and create X, (disambiguation) and X (biblical figure) pages. Conflict could be bypassed by giving the (kibbutz) articles the primary name and making all the diambig pages X (disambiguation). Not sure that this idea would be apperciated entirely, I think the status quo is fine. --Shuki (talk) 22:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't believe using Shomron is POV (and I would be prepared to defend its use in any debate) as there is not the same connotations with its use as there are with the term Judea and Samaria. There are only a few cases in which town names are the same in Israel (Taibe, Tamra and Yokneam - most DABs seem to be from people, ancient cities/regions or other uses of the word), but these can be disambiguated by using regional council names. The only one I think we need to keep using (kibbutz) and (moshav) is Merhavia, as both are in the same regional council.
 * However, I do agree that we should aim to avoid the need for DABs wherever possible - I would imagine in most cases that a modern village would be more relevant than a biblical figure, and that they should be the top level pages. I also found a few where DABs were being used unnecessarily (possibly as someone just copied the title across from he.wiki. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  23:05, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Please move Mekhora, WB to Mekhora. I gave the main page a disamb dab. Thanks. --Shuki (talk) 08:25, 3 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Done - I've scrapped the DAB page as the only other use is for the political party. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  09:12, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 801 of the articles assigned to this project, or 18.4%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-06-18.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subsribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 17:33, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Rename proposal for the lists of basic topics
This project's subject has a page in the set of Lists of basic topics.

See the proposal at the Village pump to change the names of all those pages.

The Transhumanist 10:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme
As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.
 * The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
 * The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
 * A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot  ( Disable )  21:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Anti-Semtic or not?
Interesting discussion here. Is publication calling for expulsion of the Jews from Israel to Florida, ranting about Jewish global domination, and plans for Greater Israel with Jerusalem as a capital of the World anti-Semtic or not? M0RD00R (talk) 14:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

An A-Class review for American Palestine Line now open
A WikiProject Ships A-Class review for American Palestine Line is now open; all editors are invited to participate, and any input there would be appreciated! Thanks! — Bellhalla (talk) 04:25, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

The neutrality of the article Lehi (group)
Can one of the project memeber help on the article of Lehi (group)?

Since I'm pretty new here, you are probably more familiar with the protocols the are needed

The neutrality of the article is in dispute, I've placed a tag of it, but they removed it.

Here are some examples:

First:"Although the name of the group became "Lehi" only after the death of its founder, Avraham Stern, this article follows the common practice of referring to it by that name throughout its history."

(The whole sentence is not true, they called themselves Lehi, some brits were name calling them so (not Lehi themselves). I only heard of what the Brits name called them once before. 3 lines, dedicated to explaining why the article will use this in stead of a Lehi..!?

second, the whole portion of contacting the Nazis is of perplex to me:

They contacted the Nazis since they thought they could play against the Brits, they figured the Nazis didn't want Jews in Europe (some what unreasonable idea to me, yet they have done so) - and not for the sake of a "Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis" (never heard of this).

Third, "German plans such as the Madagascar Plan eventually failed and ultimately led the Nazis to initiate the Holocaust, the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" in 1942,"

Not true. They wanted to murder Jews anyway.

What? Is this the reason for murdering 6 million Jews?

There is no reason to murder innocent 6 million Jews, not to speak of evacuating them from Europe nor if the plan is failed.

And of course, the whole article is full of name calling "terror" instead of "Lehi group" etc, as well as the category added (to it.

There is much more to it, those are just examples.

--Shevashalosh (talk) 08:42, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how you can claim that calling them terrorists is "name calling" given that they were designated as such by the British, the Yishuvm, the Israeli government and the UN. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  09:14, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * If you mention in the body of the article (once) that there were claims of it, that is acceptable. Yet, if the article is full of it, it is something totally different... (Get what I'm saying?) as well of the usage of "The Stern Gang", that the definition of it as portrayed as though they called themselves this way. Not true (name calling by the Brits). 3 lines are dedicated to why this untrue claim in the body of the article. known!? I heard of the name calling of "Stern Gang" by the Brits only once before).


 * as well as the other examples I have given on the contact with the Nazi and much more, which gives the whole article a bit of an un neutral face.


 * --Shevashalosh (talk) 10:13, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a lousy article, gripped by people who seem to be followers or perhaps descendants of the very people who were members of this terrorist gang. It should be entitled "Stern Gang" - it's only called "Lehi" because people with a really serious Conflict of Interest want to give the criminals respectability. The terrorists (Stern and Irgun) are said to have killed 748 British soldiers (ie the very people who'd led the war on the Nazis) in 2 years after the death of Hitler (I can't find how many were killed during the war). Where is the real history? Templar98 (talk) 14:36, 17 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This is the Israel-Palestine collaboration project. We try to cooperate, even though there are sometimes deep disagreements between the participants of the project.  We try to avoid personal attacks on editors and do not normally cast aspersions on their motives or ancestry.


 * We appreciate the passion with which you put forth your views, and do not reject that you may have valid points about the article. But please try in the future to focus on the content of the articles, without impugning the other editors.  Thank you, --Ravpapa (talk) 16:34, 17 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Later: Good lord, I've been preaching on the wrong page. This is not the Israel-Palestine collaboration project.  My mistake.  I suppose that means you can give a bit more latitude to your feelings here, and be a little less cooperative. --Ravpapa (talk) 04:25, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

2001 Israeli Nerve Gas Attacks
This page came up when I was on NPP, and no doubt people here would be better able than I right this moment to sift through as to the article's viability under policy and guideline.  RGTraynor  13:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * It does seem to need more reliable sources. The most reliable source there seems to be this James Longley. How reliable is he? -- Nudve (talk) 16:44, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the main problem here isn't the sources (although I agree with Nudve), but the conflict with WP:POVFORK. Who says that 2001 had any special significance for nerve gas attacks? Who says that nerve gas attacks are more significant than rubber bullet attacks, for example? A much more general article could be created, like Israeli use of force against Palestinian civilians, and even that may be a POV fork (depending on how it's presented). I think we should wait for a couple more opinions and if there's consensus, AfD the article. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:00, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Israel has carried out (or perhaps I should say "almost certainly carried out") very serious attacks in breach of other WMD covenants, but only in 2001 was it accused of chemical warfar. James Longley is a named individual, a media professional, who reports on the consequences of this affair, and comes with video evidence. His report is confirmed by Jonathan Cook, another media professional, reporting from the West Bank, almost totally isolated from Gaza. The combined weight of these two reports is more than adequate to make this worth reporting. Well, unless the Wikipedia is a no-go area for solid evidence of atrocities perpetrated by Israel, of course. Templar98 (talk) 14:07, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

The article should be deleted. It is untrue.

The article relies on a number of sources which are contradictory or irrelevant. The first source cited is a report by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights from February 2001. The report has a headline that "Israeli occupation forces use a new gas with unusually severe symptoms". However, in the body of the report, the gas is identified twice as "tear gas". While noting that the symptoms of the tear gas seemed particularly severe, the report says, "The hospital lacked the technical means to identify the gas used. PCHR will refer to international experts on this subject." There is no follow-up to this report indicating that the gas was anything other than CS, the standard tear gas used by Israeli forces.

The lead of the article states that "The symptoms reported match those of tabun, a known anticholinesterase poison belonging to a family of organophosphate nerve poisons", and the article states that this is a newly developed nerve gas. However, the source cited for this (http://emedicine.com/emerg/topic899.htm), contradicts this claim. According to the article in emedicine, tabun is a gas developed by the Germans in World War II, and "The only confirmed wartime use of nerve agents was during the 1981-1987 Iran-Iraq War, where tabun and sarin were used by Iraq in an effort to gain advantage over Iran." None of the symptoms cited in the article - attractive fragrance, delayed reaction, spasms, paralysis - are symptoms of tabun poisoning. Rather, the article identifies the symptoms as "conjunctival injection and pupillary constriction," respiratory depression, and apnea. Onset of symptoms from the inhaled poison is almost immediate (the article says symptoms were delayed), and it is generally fatal (no fatalities are mentioned in the article).

The article relies also on statements by "Dr. Helen Bruzau - Medecins Sans Frontieres" who is quoted in a film. However, a search of the Medecins Sans Frontieres website - which contains a comprehensive archive of all the reports and press releases issued by the organization - reveals no reference to the alleged gas attacks. I have sent a query to MSF to verify if a Dr. Helen Bruzau actually worked for the organization. If so, perhaps she can be contacted and can shed some light on the source of the story.

Other sources cited in the article rely on the same quotes from Dr. Bruzau, and repeat contentions of symptoms that are contrary to those cited in the emedicine article. They contain a number of internal contradictions which raise doubts about their reliability. One of the sources notes that it is uncertain whether the doctor's name is Bruzau or Brisco.

There is no reference to the use of poison gas in the archives of the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Times of London. It seems unlikely to me that a story of this magnitude would be ignored by the entire western media.

The Israelis have done enough horrible things to the Palestinians that we don't have to make up slanders. They only detract. --Ravpapa (talk) 18:08, 14 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Kudos on the research, Ravpapa! Also, it's nice to see you back :) -- Nudve (talk) 18:24, 14 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I have nominated the article for deletion. Those wishing to participate in the discussion should do so at Articles for deletion/2001 Israeli Nerve Gas Attacks. --Ravpapa (talk) 13:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Sultan Yacoub MIAs
Articles have recently been created about three Israeli MIAs from the Battle of Sultan Yacoub: Yehuda Katz, Zachary Baumel, and Tzvi Feldman. In the Hebrew Wikipedia, they redirect to the battle. Are they individually notable? -- Nudve (talk) 15:30, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't believe they are notable by themselves and would agree with he.wiki's example - you could cite WP:ONEEVENT, WP:NOT (People notable only for one event) or WP:NOT. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That's what I thought, but perhaps a redirect to Israeli MIAs is better? -- Nudve (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with the general idea of a redirect, although the current situation is not ideal. The page Israeli MIAs provides absolutely no information about the circumstances of their disappearance, and also doesn't say what has been done to retrieve them. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:12, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think such information can be inserted into Israeli MIAs. Nothing says it has to remain purely a list. Actually, the same can be said for Guy Hever. -- Nudve (talk) 18:22, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * First off, WP:OTHERSTUFF. Given that, Ron Arad, Tenenbaum, Regev, and Goldwasser also fit single event memorial pages as do all other MIAs. The three Sultan Yaakov MIAs are significant since; time still MIA, and the low amount of Israeli MIAs making each one notable by default. I don't think these are memorial pages and I try to refrain from using he wp as a barometer of much. --Shuki (talk) 21:34, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Eh? You're citing WP:OTHERSTUFF, but then using it as an argument? The four you've cited have recieved far, far much more media attention than the three MIAs here. Their details could easily be merged into the main article, which is barely more than a stub at the moment. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  21:51, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that 'more media attention' should also be balanced with the fact that there is simply more media now. I'm sure that Shalit, Regev and Goldwasser have received 'more media attention' in the last two years than all MIAs put together. 'More media attention' is not a true barometer of encyclopedia information. Perhaps you can explain why the three from Sultan Yakoub are not notable while the others are? If we are going for true celeb status, I'd agree that only Ron Arad is a legit entry. Frankly, otherstuff can be used anyway people want to use it. --Shuki (talk) 22:28, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Burma road
I have a question about Burma road. Does someone know if the main road that linked the coastal plain to Jerusalem after the war was built on the Burma road's trace or if it was another one (south of this one ?), eg along the railroad ? Thank you. Ceedjee (talk) 13:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I believe that after the war, the road now titled Highway 44 was the main road. Highway 1, which goes through Sha'ar HaGai, was only opened later. I'm not absolutely positive, though. -- Nudve (talk) 13:51, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

The route starts at the settlement of Harel, on route 44, and cuts through the woods to Neve Shalom. From there it continues uphill (still through the woods), pretty much parallel to route 1, until Shoresh, where it joins route 1 at the Shoeva junction.

The route is now part of "Shvil Yisrael", the hiking trail that stretches the entire length of Israel. --Ravpapa (talk) 04:25, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * [[Image:Route de Birmanie.png|right|200px|thumb]]
 * Thank you for your answers.
 * Indeed, it goes about 1 km south of Neve Shalom (through Harel / Beit Jiz) and then links Beit Susin. After Beit Mashir, it is easy because an important road already existed in 1948 and went to Shoeva (Saris).
 * But between these, where would you locate the Burma road between Beit Susin and Beit Mashir on this map ?
 * I read it passed through Har Tuv which is difficult to consider reliable because 'Islin and 'Artuv where attacked around 18 July, ie 1 month after the road was operationnal... ???
 * I would like to correct the map from wikipedia where Hartuv and S'ara and not properly located and where I am not sure for the "Route de Birmanie" way...
 * Thank you. :-)
 * Ceedjee (talk) 11:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Have a look at this: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1018455&id=1363676762 --Ravpapa (talk) 16:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Here is what I did with your map and drawing : Burma road Do you think it is ok ? Ceedjee (talk) 19:12, 25 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The route looks right in general. The Burma road would be the orange dashed line that runs through Khirbet Beit Far, Beit Jiz, Beit Susin, and Beit Mahsin.  None of those appear on my map - it is fair to assume that Beit Mahsin is Beit Meir, which is where the Burma road joined the regular Mandatory road.  As far as I know, the Burma road did not pass through any Arab villages (that was the whole point), so either the villages on the map were abandoned before the 48 war or the route bypassed them. --Ravpapa (talk) 19:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok for Beit Meir. The name was changed later.
 * Inhabitants of Khirbet Beit Far, Beit Jiz, Beit Susin and Beit Mahsin left or were expelled during operation Nahshon and Maccabi so more than 1 month before Latrun battles but some villages were occupied by ALA and Palestinian volunteers. (ref. Morris, Birth... Revisited)
 * Morris draws the Burma road through Beit Susin and Beit Jiz and on the Palmah website they refer to both these villages as unloading areas when the road was not finished and material/food was carried by men.
 * For Khirbet Beit Far, I don't know. It is just because there was a small road there and that your map shows the Burma road in that area.
 * But I am really amazed that in the area east of Beit Susin the road was so close to Sha'ar HaGai. Anyway this fits your drawing and Morris's one. My point comes from the fact that according to the relief, the Jordanian should see the trucks from artillery ridge without problem. So I don' understant how it is possible. More, on the Palmach website, they talk about the road from Hartuv (!) to Beit Mashir which would be more "clever" but I don't understand because both Morris and Khalidi say 2 villages north of kibbutz Hartuv as well as 'Artuv arabe village only felt in mid-July.
 * This is not easy. Ceedjee (talk) 21:15, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

In his last book : 1948, Benny Morris has drown a map where the Burma road goes from Deir Muheizin, Beit Jis, Beit Susin and Beit Mahsin. He draws a straight line but I assume this is something that looks more like Ravpapa's drawing. Ceedjee (talk) 18:13, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

WP:Naming conventions (Hebrew) and Mechitza v. Mehitza
Please join a discussion on the following on WT:Naming conventions (Hebrew)

Earlier today, an editor renamed the Mechitza article Mehitza on grounds that the change is required by this naming conventions guideline. Some questions:


 * Is this really a guideline? Did it ever get consensus in the relevant part of a community, or was it labeled a guideline on agreement of a small number of users? I'm not going to change the status without discussion but I'd like to know what the community thinks.
 * Should it be clarified that it doesn't apply to this type of case? The general WP:Naming conventions guideline says to use the term most commonly used in English based on general rather than specialized use. A guideline that imposes a specific standardized transliteration scheme based on specialist opinion resulting in commonly-used words being spelled in unused and possibly unrecognizable ways would seem to go against the spirit of the guideline. The main guideline reflects a philosophy that because article names are the way users look up subjects, they need to reflect the search terms (and spellings) actual users are most likely to employ in their searches. Given this situation, I personally don't think an approach that bases article names on any standardized spelling method not reflecting actual English use is consistent with the overall guideline. Such an approach may be permissable for words that have almost never been spelled in English, but I don't think Wikipedia's overall WP:Naming conventions guideline makes it a permissable option for words that have tens of thousands of ghits, regularly appear in English-language newspaper articles, and show other evidence of common use in English. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 02:36, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:BibleAsFact
I have proposed this template for deletion in accordance with Wikipedia's deletion policy. Please see the discussion at Templates for deletion/Log/2008 July 30. Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 14:23, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Haaretz using Wikipedia articles?
I was updating the Tamir Goodman article today (he's just signed for Maccabi Haifa) and was referencing it to this Haaretz article. During this, I noticed a lot of similarities in the text (which I checked hadn't been added since the Haaretz article went online). There was a particular resemblence between these paragraphs;

Wikipedia version: "Goodman then fulfilled a dream of his by moving to Israel and signing a 3-year contract with Maccabi Tel Aviv on 22 July 2002. To get more playing time, he was loaned to Giv'at Shmuel for the 2002-03 season, but he never got the playing time he expected, failing to meet the high expectations fans had for him. He then played in a lower league for Kiryat Ata in the 2003-04 season."

Haaretz version: "In 2002 he fulfilled what he described as a personal dream by immigrating to Israel, signing a three-year contract with Maccabi Tel Aviv. He was loaned for the 2002-2003 season to Givat Shmuel to get more playing time, but his performance continued to fall below expectations, eventually landing him at second-tier Kiryat Ata."

Either our article is a rip off of another that Haaretz is using, or they've used the article as a basis for theirs. Thoughts? пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  10:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Funny. Today I updated Ralph Klein (coach) with this Haaretz article, which also bears similarities. -- Nudve (talk) 11:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I sent an email to Haaretz. Perhaps they'll read it and react. HG | Talk 13:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * That is not fair but that is perfectly legal because they "paraphrase" wiki. But at least, they could specify wikipedia as their source. Ceedjee (talk) 17:11, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think the legal aspect is the only important one here. If Haaretz authors heavily copy from Wikipedia, it also means that we should cite them less (or not cite them at all), because we could be citing ourselves. It creates a serious WP:RS issue. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:03, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Correct.
 * Any source of information that uses wikipedia is not a wp:rs source any more due to circular referencing
 * But what it means in practice is a little crazy... Ceedjee (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I concur with Ynhockey that the legal issue is not important. However, I don't think it really damages their reliability that much, given that the articles their citing are themselves well cited. Besides, the relevant information (i.e. the news item) we're relying on when citing them is original, and only the background is from Wikipedia. It's mostly just funny, I think. -- Nudve (talk) 03:33, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes - good to know that our work is being used! I was actually about the use the Haaretz article to cite some of the background info in the article (particularly the controversial part about him thinking his coach was anti-semitic) until I noticed that it would effectively be a circular reference... пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  10:56, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

Jewish navy
Looks like a hoax. Doesn't really make sense. The book referred to doesn't seem to exist. Can anyone show evidence to the contrary? -- Nudve (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the procedure should be fairly simple: ask the creating editor for additional sources and/or other proof, if there's no reply within a reasonable time period (say, 7 days), AfD the article as a hoax. I don't think there will be much trouble with the AfD if no evidence comes up. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:59, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, the creator's last edit was made in January 2007. Since then, references were requested at the article and its talk page. -- Nudve (talk) 19:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Request for comments on Naming conventions (Hebrew)
Hi! A request for comments has been made for this proposed guideline. Please comment at WT:Naming conventions (Hebrew). Best, --Shirahadasha (talk) 05:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Hiloni
This article is set to be displayed on the front page in the DYK section but the article's creator just got indef blocked. Any chance someone knowledgeable about Israel could give the article a quick once-over and let me know if it is okay? Thanks, Gatoclass (talk) 10:25, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Lots of stuff in there which could be tagged with fact, e.g. the statement "For example, the hiloni of Israel often observe some traditional practices in a limited way, such as lighting Shabbat candles, limiting their activities on Shabbat, or keeping kosher to some extent, all of which are rare among American Reform Jews, and unheard of among American Jews who describe themselves as secular.", which has three unverified claims (often, rare and unheard of). I was also surprised to see no mention of Shinui or Hetz or the Marriage in Israel debate. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  10:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Number 57 is right. The article seems to juxtapose Hiloni next to Haredi. But this ignores a wide plethora of groups in between, such as the Religious Zionism and the hard to define Masorti ("traditional") category. Besides, wasn't Herzl Austrian? -- Nudve (talk) 11:08, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay, sounds like the article has problems. I'll see that it doesn't get featured, thanks for the advice. Gatoclass (talk) 11:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Prime Minister Infobox
User:Shevashalosh asks to change the infobox so that a tab would read "Acting Prime Minister" instead of "Deputy". I'm not sure whether that can (or should) be done, and how. I'm posting the discussion here so that members with more experience with editing templates can comment:

Hi Nudve,

I'd like to ask you, if you know where Israeli Prime minister infobox is located (the one used for olmert's article)?

There are two things i'm cocerned about:

1) is the "Deputy" section, which states as if Tzipi Livni is the the deputy Prime Minister -instaed of Acting Prime Minister

2) second, the dates now are correct, but the infobox looks bad - so i'd like to add more section title by add "additional paramenter" title:

Acting Prime Minister =

I know in Hebrew wikipedia you can add an additional parameter title:

- which will result as

Acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni

do you know how can I do that in English wikipedia ?

--Shevashalosh (talk) 22:41, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Which article do you want to change? Olmert, Livni, or the template? I don't think this parameter is mentioned in any other PM or acting PM. Anyway, I believe the infobox is Template:Infobox Officeholder. You can bring this up to discussion there. -- Nudve (talk) 04:55, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Olmert I want to change:


 * 1) says - deputy PM: Tzipi Livni. she is the minister of Acting PM, Deputy is an honorary title, hers is assuming office in any event that olmert cant function.


 * 2) On Hebrew wikipedia there is an option not to change template, but add "additional title parameter:




 * - which will result as:


 * Acting Prime Minister Tzipi Livni


 * do you know how can I do that in English wikipedia ?


 * --Shevashalosh (talk) 12:24, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Nudve (talk) 13:43, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hey Nudve (and everyone elese)


 * What I want to do is this:


 * Ministry of Acting PM: Tzipi Livni


 * Deputies: (Deputies list)


 * Vice Prime Minister: Haim Ramon


 * As for now it is very confusing.


 * other then that, I'd like to make some logical order - to make it look, not only correcet, but rather nice looking as well.


 * help me find the location of this infobox! and help me on my question regardin adding "additional paramenet title", this is easy to add to to a template without changing it's basic formula.


 * ThanX!--Shevashalosh (talk) 14:00, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Livni isn't the acting prime minister. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that 'acting' is used when the prime minister can't perform his duties, not when he potentially can't perform them. For example, when Sharon was active, Olmert was the deputy PM, while when Sharon was incapacitated, Olmert became the acting PM. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:58, 7 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's quite confusing, but she is indeed Acting Prime Minister (I found out when trying to write Deputy leaders of Israel) - see the Knesset list of ministers. Apparently you get the title even when you're not actually acting; when you act as PM you are the caretaker... пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:02, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * No - this is again a mistake. If the PM is dead, then The minister of acting PM - becomes the Acting PM (assumes PM office immdiatlly). however, If the PM is is ill (example: Sharon having a stroke), then the minister of acting PM, becomes the "caretker for PM", thus, not assuming office until 100 day passed, in which the ill PM is declared "permenantlly incapacitated", thus, out of office, and only then the minister of acting PM - can becom Acting PM (in office)


 * By anycase, can you help me on this one ...?? I put on my talk page a link to a new template i'm trying to write, based on olmert's - only with the additional parameters - i mentioned in the above. But my obly probelm is that I don't know how to create a new template ...? can you help me create a new templaye... ?


 * see User talk:Shevashalosh


 * ThanX! --Shevashalosh (talk) 18:47, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Blood Libel at Deir Yassin
I fear that article will bring many problems and edit wars when it will be found by what may be called : ideological opponents of [Neo-]Zionism. That would not be bad if some of us here could try to neutralize this "a little bit" and improve the article. This article must be in wikipedia because it gives a relevant point of view of Israeli society internal debate but -I think- not in the current way it is written. I don't think I am the best editor to take care of this; reason why I post this message here... Ceedjee (talk) 06:35, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose this article should stay as it meets WP:BK. It does seem to have neutrality issues, although there's no discussion, so the tag violates WP:DRIVEBY. That said, I haven't read the book, so I can't comment on its content. -- Nudve (talk) 06:42, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I didn't add the flag but I will not remove this either. It has been added by a RC patroller :.
 * The WP:NPoV issues are in the way the book is contextualized.
 * The article sounds as if this book was stating the truth and it links to the other articles with this bias. It is also poorly written.
 * It deserves a better treatment.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 07:00, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree, and have posted a message regarding this on ShevaShalosh's talk page. -- Nudve (talk) 07:10, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your support :-) Ceedjee (talk) 07:44, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This article is very problematic. First of all, the book itself: the book is unavailable in any Israeli bookstore, and was not published by any of the mainstream publishing houses in Hebrew (the book has not been translated into English, though the reference in the article suggests that there is an English version). It appears to be self-published, though I can't state that for sure. I have been unable to find out who Alim publishers are (they don't appear in the phone book), and I can't really research this until after the weekend. The book has not been reviewed in any of the major Israeli popular or academic publications. All the references to it are by organizations which are representative of the right wing, and even extreme right wing, of Israeli politics. The Jabotinsky prize, for example (which the book won), is granted by "Misdar Jabotinsky", an organization affiliated with the right-wing Likud party. The award is not one that is associated with any recognized academic institution.

Secondly, according to several of the sources quoted in the article, the article does not exactly represent the entire thesis of Milstein's. In spite of Milstein's inflammatory title, he does not suggest that massacres were not committed by the Israelis during the 1948 war. On the contrary, Milstein contends in the book that one of the main motivations was to draw attention away from a different massacre, at Ein Zeitoun, near Zefat, committed a week prior to Deir Yassin, by the Palmach - a massacre that until Milstein's book was completely undocumented. (This information is from http://hydepark.hevre.co.il/topic.asp?topic_id=2191820&forum_id=99 - take it for what it's worth).

Third, Uri Milstein is himself a very problematic figure. Here is what Gideon Samett, editor of the Haaretz newspaper, writes about him: "Uri Milstein is almost entirely outcast by publishers, not to mention the academic establishment. He has not succeeded in establishing himself in a single respectable academic institution." (http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/objects/pages/PrintArticle.jhtml?itemNo=849474) Samett, incidentally, was arguing that Milstein actually should be given a voice in the academic world.

All of which is not to say that there might not be some grain of truth in what Milstein says. I have no way of evaluating this without at least reading the book - something that no one in this discussion, including the author of the article, has done. And, with a $99 price tag (from Uri Milstein's personal website - the only place I could find it available) and no copies available in libraries, that is not something I plan to do any time soon.

I would suggest that, given the difficulty in verifying the content of the article, and given the clear bias of the supporting sources, this article should be deleted. At best, the book could be mentioned in the context of the Deir Yassin massacre. --Ravpapa (talk) 21:04, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Later: Oops, I see it is mentioned in Deir Yassin massacre. I think that reference is enough. --Ravpapa (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * The article reads like an advertisement for the book, not like an encyclopedia article. It's also a diatribe ("one the most anti-Semitic Libels in the history of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute over a war battle episode, during Israel's war of Independence, and accusation of a 'massacre', which were never proven in court or never even been filed a lawsuit on any such basis"). The book seems to be notable, but the article is a mess. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 21:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Milstein has some (and even much) credit in the academic world and his books are/were used as references in several historians books. So, I didn't expect this one was self-published and more... impossible to get in libraries.
 * That is a problem and deletion could be discussed indeed.
 * I think it is interesting because he is the only purely neo-zionist historian and some scholars refer to this new historiography (as a sociological phenomenon) but that is maybe not enough for wikipedia.
 * I still think this article is terribly bad and unencyclopaedic and I don't succeed in discussing with shevashalosh.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 21:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The book can be found in Israeli bookstores. I agree, as I said, that the article does have neutrality problems. Shevashalosh said he has a copy of the book, but hasn't provided page references. Unless this is fixed, the article might be construed as a coatrack for a Revisionist Zionist account of the Deir Yassin incident. -- Nudve (talk) 05:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The book can be found in Israeli bookstores. I agree, as I said, that the article does have neutrality problems. Shevashalosh said he has a copy of the book, but hasn't provided page references. Unless this is fixed, the article might be construed as a coatrack for a Revisionist Zionist account of the Deir Yassin incident. -- Nudve (talk) 05:22, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I gave the article a rewrite without, I think, changing any of its substance. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 05:58, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * he reverted... Ceedjee (talk) 08:12, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I put a neutrality tag on it while this is sorted out. Gatoclass (talk) 10:13, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Why exactly was Malik Shabazz's rewrite reverted? -- Nudve (talk) 11:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the MOS says "be bold", so I was bold. I rewrote the lead of the article. Now, no doubt, everyone will be mad at me. Ah, me, so it goes. --Ravpapa (talk) 13:30, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

''20 minutes later: Wow, that was quick! Shevashalosh has reverted me. So it goes. --Ravpapa (talk) 14:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)''
 * Oh, boy...Anyway, I still think my revision, on top of Malik Shabazz's edits, should be the version to build on, until actual content from the book (rather than about the book) is introduced. -- Nudve (talk) 15:39, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It's becoming clear to me that the article isn't about Milstein's book. It's Shevashalosh's attempt to write his own article about the Deir Yassin massacre without the trouble of achieving consensus at that article. I left a note at the article's Talk page. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 22:19, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Guys,
 * This is not possible. Is he user:Zeq ? Ceedjee (talk) 23:00, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Nudve' I agree with you. I like yours better than mine. I do think that if we are going to note that the book won the Jabotinsky award, we have to say what that is (an award for works that promote a particular political point of view, not necessarily for excellence in scholarship). Also, we need a better source than Global report to show notability - that is a blog spot, and the post is by Milstein himself. There is the Wallah article (http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1090079). There was also a short, unsigned article in Haaretz about it on April 26, 2007. Apropos this issue, see my post on ShevaShalosh's talk page. --Ravpapa (talk) 04:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Perlmuter or Perlmutter
There are two pages for Inbal Perlmuter (or Perlmutter) which different spelling of last name. Which is it, can someone consolidate the two? (or I will if you guys can tell me which spelling it is, when I get back from vacation.) Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.93.174.179 (talk) 16:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee keepts deleting the name war of Independence at Wars of Israel
He keeps dleting the name "war of independence to 1948 Palestine War. For NPOV I included both names.

He also keeps deleting Siege of Jerusalem (1948), to some newlly invented name.

it is unaccpetble to delete history, just because you don't like it.

someboy must take care of it, or refer this to someone responsible.

thank you. --Shevashalosh (talk) 21:03, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * reported here
 * About the title, discussed here (as told you)
 * Ceedjee (talk) 22:57, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * He's right - it is only known as the Independence War by Israelis. The international community know it as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  23:07, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Exaclly, and so is the article liked to it, War of Independence, but he keeps changing it to 1948 Palestine War.
 * The previous sentace states : "The violent confrontations which appear in this list were recognized as wars by the Defense Minister of Israel: ....
 * see : Wars of Israel
 * --Shevashalosh (talk) 23:17, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Number57, please, read the talk page here above on the WPCOOL Project. Efraim Karsh !!!, Yoav Gelber !!, David Tal !, Avi Shlaim..., are maybe better informed and qualified than us... And let's not forget Hurewitz and the Kimche brothers... All Israeli scholars. Ceedjee (talk) 23:20, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think you have misunderstood. I was saying that it should not be referred to as the Independence War. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  23:26, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Well...
 * Let's discuss this tomorrow... Shevashalosh has killed me today... Too much is too much :-)
 * In fact, I claim the period Dec47 to Feb49 must be named 1948 Palestine War but I understand that could seem extremelly strange to all of us...
 * Palestinians call this al-Naqba. They don't even agree there was a war.
 * See you, Ceedjee (talk) 23:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I think Ceedjee is right about the 1948 war. I'm not sure which name is the most common worldwide, but 1948 Palestine War sounds more neutral and should be preferred. However, I think he's wrong about the siege of Jerusalem per WP:MILMOS. -- Nudve (talk) 05:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * ceejee, stop deleting my messages: here is what I wrote: --Shevashalosh (talk) 16:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Note what the article states:


 * "The violent confrontations which appear in this list were recognized as wars by the Defense Minister of Israel: War of Independence.


 * It is impossible to change the facts just for ceedjee, since Defense Minister of Israel reconizes the name War of Independence, wich is widely known in public as 1948 Arab-Israeli War as the name links to it War of Independence, and not known as 1948 Palestine War, which ceedjee constently tries to change. -Shevashalosh (talk) 16:46, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Again ceedjeee! stop deleting my messages - or I will report you!


 * Here is my addtional comments: (--Shevashalosh (talk) 17:55, 10 August 2008 (UTC))


 * he also changed it in the table-list, from 1948 Arab-Israeli War, again to 1948 Palestine War - I haven't even noticed it, and it still apears. --Shevashalosh (talk) 17:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Battle for Jerusalem or siege of Jerusalem ?
However, I think he's wrong about the siege of Jerusalem per WP:MILMOS. -- Nudve (talk) 05:07, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi Nuvde,
 * Could you develop your reasonning ? I don't understand the link between what is written in WP:MILMOS and our case.
 * I base mine on the fact latests scholars use those words :
 * Ytzhak Levi, Nine Measures (1986) talk about "the battles for Jerusalem"
 * Arie Itzchaki, Latroun (1982) talks about "the battle for the road of Jerusalem".
 * Meir Avizohar, (2002) titles The Battle for Jerusalem, 1948,
 * Benny Morris, 1948, (2008) uses the word Battle for Jerusalem.
 * On the other side, I found :
 * Dov Joseph who titles The faithful city: The Siege of Jerusalem, 1948 but he is not a scholar, he is a protagonist...
 * And there is what could sound as a "compromis" but again from a protagonist :
 * Shamir, S. (2001). The Battle for Jerusalem: How the siege was lifted. Jerusalem: Posner & Sons.
 * I also think that the use of the word "siege" lacks neutrality of point of view. For the Palestinian Arabs, it was not a "siege" and for the Arab Legion who fought at Latroun and in the west city, it was not either. I think also the issue (division of the city) shows both Israelis and Jordanians fought for the city and the events show it was a fierced "battle"...
 * ... Ceedjee (talk) 09:33, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't know. Wikipedia's definition of siege can include this event. I'm not sure why the Siege of Paris, for example, was a "siege" while the Siege of Stalingrad was a "battle". Anyway, the choice is between "Siege of Jerusalem (1948)" and "Battle of Jerusalem (1948)". -- Nudve (talk) 10:37, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with your last point about both choices.
 * A priori, I don't know why it is sometimes battle and sometimes siege ?
 * Isn't this because Paris was 100% surrounded by Prussians and Stalingrad not ? Ceedjee (talk) 16:50, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Could be. Or maybe it's because the siege of Paris was a "campaign" that included several battles while Stalingrad was an indivisible conflict. There were several battles and operations surrounding Jerusalem during the war. -- Nudve (talk) 17:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't forget the numerous Israeli operations that were not aimed at releaving the "siege" but at taking East-Jerusalem : such as Operation Kilshon, Operation Yevushi, the attack of Beit Jarrah, ... These episodes looks more like operations in a battle to control a city. Ceedjee (talk) 17:20, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You're the expert. -- Nudve (talk) 17:47, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I studied much this topic but that doesn't prevent me to be wrong or to make mistakes (as you have already pointed out some).
 * That's why I like to refer to "scholars" and not to "personal analysis" to give titles to articles.
 * But sometimes, we don't think about some issues...
 * From the Israli point of view, the jewish population was besieged. And there was a siege. But is this NPoV ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * From the Israli point of view, the jewish population was besieged. And there was a siege. But is this NPoV ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It was exaclly aimed to capture and rlease the Jewish quarters under seige and starving (In east Jerusalem as well).


 * The name is widely known "Seige of Jeruslem" or "Seige on Jeruslem" - this other name is newlly invented History by ceedjee. --Shevashalosh (talk) 21:44, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * This thread is becoming a mess. Anyway, I trust Ceedjee's judgment in this case. Maybe a query at WP:MILHIST could help. -- Nudve (talk) 11:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Shevashalosh.
 * I gave here about 5 references from Israeli historians that talk about "battle".
 * So, what credit do you expect when you write "ceedjee invented this name".
 * Ceedjee (talk) 07:48, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Nudve, you are invited to take a look at Talk:Deir Yassin massacre


 * --Shevashalosh (talk) 22:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

here is a link from Talk:Siege of Jerusalem (1948) :

palestinehistory website

--Shevashalosh (talk) 23:12, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed. This website closes the debate. What do you expect we tell you ?
 * Ceedjee (talk) 07:54, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI : question asked here Ceedjee (talk) 13:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI : question asked here Ceedjee (talk) 13:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
 * FYI : question asked here Ceedjee (talk) 13:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * 'Battle of Jerusalem'/'Siege of Jerusalem'. Since Jerusalem had a mixed population (Jewish/Arab) 'battle' is almost the default term for NPOV, for a simple reason. There was a battle by two groups, Jewish and Arab for the one city, in which both groups had very substantial populations, historic and military interests. A 'siege' cannot help but imply that an outside enemy (here the Arabs) surrounded a town (as in Jerusalem's past, (David's siege? ) the Roman siege, the Persian, Arab sieges, the Crusader Siege, Saladin's siege, the Ottoman siege, etc.etc.,) in order to reduce and occupy it, wresting it from its traditional denizens. The fact is that in 1948 Arab and Jewish denizens could each claim to be, in various ways, under 'siege' at various times. To use 'siege' is to hint that only the Jewish population was besieged, and POV the article irremediably. Nishidani (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

There is now a WP:RM: Talk:Siege of Jerusalem (1948). пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  17:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Archive or remove?
Um, regarding threads involved a banned user, shouldn't these be archived rather than deleted? If there is a policy on this question, I'd be glad to be better informed. Thanks. HG | Talk 20:30, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't mind archiving the discussions, as the policy is not clear on the matter. However, I think deletion is in the spirit of the policy, after the following clause from WP:BAN:
 * Banned users' user pages may be replaced by a notice of the ban and links to any applicable discussion or decision-making pages.
 * I believe that this is a clear indication that deletion is preferrable to archiving.
 * Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 20:42, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Well, perhaps an even stronger inference can be drawn from WP:BAN. Still, it's seems like a judgment call, which could take into account the reason for the ban. I would gently suggest that the delete or archive decision be made by an uninvolved party (not Ceedjee), but pls do not consider this an objection, thanks. HG | Talk 20:53, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi,
 * In fact, I didn't consider to be "really" involved (even if cited) because I only deleted the threads that had not received answers and where there was no discussion. By the way, except maybe you ?, I don't think there are many editors who are non involved...
 * I don't mind restoring all this. Ceedjee (talk) 10:15, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'm flattered. But pls don't restore it on my account. Cheers, HG | Talk 01:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

MK template
User:Everyking insists on using the Knesset site on Efraim Sneh as a ref rather than the template. Perhaps we should rethink the usage of this template, but I don't see a reason for Sneh being an exception. Any thoughts? -- Nudve (talk) 14:24, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see why it can't be used in both the references and the External links section. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  14:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I suppose that could be an option, but WP:El seems to be against it. -- Nudve (talk) 15:02, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Wasn't aware of that. Anyway, I've used a different source to get his birthplace, so added the Knesset link as a separate external link. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:16, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * That's probably the best solution all around. Good thinking :) -- Nudve (talk) 15:20, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Golan Heights dispute
A couple weeks ago a user who appears to be a Syrian national, George al-Shami, changed the content at Majdal Shams to say that it was part of Syria (he apparently also changed this for other localities, including those disputed between Lebanon and Syria). I didn't notice it at the time, but in the last few days an edit war has been going on and I have been dragged into it. I'm currently discussing this with AnonMoos on the talk page, but personally believe that the suggested change is nothing more than an anti-Israel POV push and has no place on Wikipedia, which reports facts. I'd appreciate more input from those who may have arguments I overlooked, both in terms of reliable sources, and in terms of Wikipedia policies. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:39, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

A Clean Break
This post A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm appears to be a complete WP:SOAPBOX article, designed to tie Israel to the US invasion of Iraq. Interestingly, the previous authors left out key sections of the actual document which described, for example, NON-military ways to help Jordan vis-a-vis iraq. (I corrected that omission in an edit today). I am not very experienced at dealing with policy violations (eg soapbox, NPOV); perhaps others can help with this very unbalanced article? Drmikeh49 (talk) 21:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the heads up. Why is that even still on WP? Shuki (talk) 06:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

CBS population figures
Just to let everyone know, the CBS updated its population statistics here, replacing the older version which had December 31st 2006/07 stats. This is different from what it usually does (create a new page for each release). Therefore, some of the refs using this source on Wikipedia may be outdated. I urge everyone to update the population figures if they see this source URL being used. Please note not to use provisional data, even though the other data is also an estimate and not a census. To remind everyone, a census is already in the works and should be completed by the end of the year, AFAIK. This is awesome, as we haven't had a real census in 13 years, and should bring a lot of new great information to light. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The census will be next year, the main work currently (Sept/Oct 2008) is to hire and train the coordinators. --Shuki (talk) 22:49, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Emek HaAyleh
Hello all. I'm drafting a List of Hatzolah chapters. I would like to sort the Israeli listings by district, but I can't because I can't figure out the location of one place, Emek HaAyleh. I managed to figure out all the other places that were listed in the references (though I did end up creating a few dozen alternative spelling redirects) but this one has got me stumped. I've tried several variations of spelling and punctuation, index searches, Google and Dogpile searches to no avail. I'm hoping someone in this project knows where this place is and whether we have an article on it. Thanks! &mdash;Elipongo (Talk contribs) 00:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Nevermind, I just figured it out and redirected it. Thanks anywho! &mdash;Elipongo (Talk contribs) 04:28, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement
Hello all...

An image used in the Tel Afek article, specifically Image:Afek.JPG, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 01:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I technically live close to Afek, but AFAIK there's no public transportation to the area, and therefore out of my reach at this point. If I'm ever there, I'll be sure to take a picture. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:34, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Image needs replacement
Hello all...

An image used in the Avdat article, specifically Image:Avdat view to the Negev.JPG, has a little bit of a licensing issue. The image was uploaded back when the rules around image uploading were less restrictive. It is presumed that the uploader was willing to license the picture under the GFDL license but was not clear in that regard. As such, the image, while not at risk of deletion, is likely not clearly licensed to allow for free use in any future use of this article. If anyone has an image that can replace this, or can go take one and upload it, it would be best.
 * And also, Image:Avdat.JPG in the same article.

You have your mission, take your camera and start clicking.--Jordan 1972 (talk) 22:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Football-related query
Does anyone know of a website which shows historical league tables for the lower divisions in Israel? The RSSSF has all the tables for the top flight, but I'm looking for old Liga Alef/Liga Artzit tables (older than 1999, which is where One.co.il goes back to). Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  17:20, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Can't find one. Even the Hebrew Wikipedia links to RSSSF. Are Liga Alef seasons notable? -- Nudve (talk) 18:01, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Until 1974 it was the second tier, so I would say so (though not necessarily the players in it). Plus I'm after the tables so I can expand the history of clubs who have not always been in the top tier, i.e. everyone except Maccabi TA and Hapoel TA (whose one season out of it I do have). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  21:45, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Upper Galilee
I took a look at the Upper Galilee article. Most of it seems pretty inaccurate. For example: The Upper Galilee is a mountainous area in northern Israel, its borders are the Litani river in Lebanon. Since I don't know how to fix it, could someone clean this article? Thank you. Eklipse (talk) 14:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It appears that the statement is actually correct. I will source it and mention that the Upper Galilee is in both Lebanon and Israel. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. But I believe this is an Israeli, Jewish or Biblical designation of this part of territory. I doubt any Lebanese refer to it by this name. What do you think? Eklipse (talk) 15:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't know what they call the area in Lebanon, but you're probably right that it isn't Galilee. Even so, this does not change the fact that the geographic area encompasses Lebanese territory. I have no objections to adding a note that it's mostly a Hebrew name, although this needs to be sourced because it's a disputed point (AFAIK, al-Jalil is frequently used in Arabic, possibly also to describe the Lebanese part). By the way, the part of the Upper Galilee in Lebanon is also called Lebanese Galilee in Israel. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:48, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I found a reference from Kamal Salibi's A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered which says: "...the Lebanese territory consists mostly of mountains ... ;and the highlands of upper Galilee which are commonly called Jabal Amil."I made subsequent changes in the article. I hope it settles the issue. Eklipse (talk) 16:39, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Israel-related
Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:51, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Is anyone here interested in doing this? -- Nudve (talk) 14:09, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure about identifying the proper version, but I will see what I can do about the articles, especially related to geographic locations and the IDF. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:54, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Which ones would you take out? One article I think is overrated there is Amir Peretz, who was probably rated when he was still Defense Minister. Are there any article you think should be added? -- Nudve (talk) 11:49, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I think the selection is flawed in many ways, but AFAIK this was not done by hand, but by a bot, so no point in complaining until the core articles are fixed, IMO. I agree about Amir Peretz, by the way, but also others should be added/taken out. For example, the town selection seems automatic, and does not include the highly-notable Tiberias (I'd also add Kfar Saba and Beit She'an). Some of the people on the list also have little to do with Israel and were added because they are Israeli, like the original Red Hot Chilli Peppers drummer. Right off my head, I'd also add Yedioth Ahronoth to the list. In any case, let's focus on improving the articles currently on the list :) of special concern are top-importance articles which have cleanup tags or are otherwise inadequate. For example, Israel Defense Forces. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Israel Defense Forces really does need some serious work. I don't know where to begin. I'm not exactly sure how this bot works. Hillel Slovak, to follow up on your example, must have been selected for the alternative music wikiproject, and ended up on the Israel list because his talk page is tagged WPISRAEL. -- Nudve (talk) 14:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Moved to left

I think the problem with editing the IDF article right now is that everyone's making incremental edits (Flayer, you and myself), which doesn't help the overall poor structure and organization of the article. I think we should work on a draft to improve it. Also I messaged Noclador to fix the errors in his organizational chart.

About sourcing: I don't have many sources on hand, other than military police-related, but it wouldn't be a problem to go to the library and get some. However, the two main sources I have in mind are the IDF encyclopedia (at least 18 tomes) and the IDF founding books (2 super-fat tomes with tiny print), and I have neither the time nor patience to copy them both. Let's first assess the things most lacking, and then I'll get the sources. What's the deadline, by the way? There are also a few concise sources which I don't have access to, like a recent book which has "בדרך לעם ולצבא אחד" in its title (can't remember the actual name). The book is useful in that it has copies of all the original documents for the army's founding.

On a side note, I have a problem with many importance assessments on the project. The list is really helpful! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 08:47, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe you're right. Let's wait with the IDF article. -- Nudve (talk) 08:55, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

To anyone who is interested: Nudve and I have been discussing the main IDF article here and here, and I have prepared a draft of what I believe the article's structure should be here. Please give your 2 cents if you are interested in this article, even if you have no intention of editing it - either here on this talk page, or on the draft talk page. Thanks, Ynhockey (Talk) 20:21, 30 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Again to anyone who is interested: I have re-written the lead section of the IDF article according to my own idea draft, which was supported by the only two users who seemed to show interest. Any suggestions are welcome, and let's start working on re-writing the rest of the article! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:46, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Not too bad :) I was going to suggest converting the infobox to the standard template. Is there any need for Template:IDFTable anymore? -- Nudve (talk) 17:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There isn't, and I was going to TfD it, but it's not a priority at the moment. Would appreciate if someone else did this maintenance task. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:01, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Alright, I'll do it. Let's see how this works. -- Nudve (talk) 19:12, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

I have re-written the history section of the IDF article. Check it out. I really need help with sources though - while I can dig up refs to most or all the statements, it will be highly time-consuming, and could delay the development of this article by a long stretch. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Indeed, it would require some serious research. Do you know of any books to look up? -- Nudve (talk) 18:11, 2 October 2008 (UTC)
 * There are two specialized encyclopedias while contain a ton of relevant information - Carta's Atlas for the History of Israel (1978) (אטלס כרטא לתולדות מדינת ישראל) and the IDF in its Corps Encyclopedia (I think from 1988) (צה"ל בחילו). I only have 2 tomes of the former and none of the latter, although it's possible to acquire parts slowly. Another book with a lot of information on the IDF's founding is An Army is Born (צבא נולד). There's another book I can't remember the name of which is recently and currently sold in Steimatzky (expensive, so I don't plan on buying), which has copies of all the original orders for the IDF, etc. and could be extremely useful. Other sources include Bamahane and newspaper archives - this site is supposed to have the Palestinian Post archives, and I have cited it in the past, but it doesn't seem to be up at the moment. Of course, there are likely many books on the subjects which I don't know about, and naturally many about specific parts of the IDF, which we should use once we go into the details of the article. However, for the two summary sections (lead and history), the above sources should be more than enough. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:19, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Christian Zionism in the United Kingdom
Can someone tell me who gave this article a B (rather than Start) rating as part of your project? Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:29, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * this user. I agree that it's Start class at best. Feel free to change it. -- Nudve (talk) 15:33, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there some actual process that an article should go through to get a rating? I am glad you agree with me, but I would rather know that a few others agree too before in effect reverting another editor. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 15:38, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally, ratings under GA don't require a process. Be Bold - Worst comes to worst, someone else will disagree and revert, as per WP:BRD. Cheers, -- Nudve (talk) 15:44, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

This user is editing all Israeli soccer players who are Jewish (and some that are not) and removing content from their Wikipedia entries in regards to their ethnicity etc. Examples of such are Oshri Roash, Alon Harazi, Dela Yampolsky, Reuven Atar etc. There is an ensuing debate now on this page, Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents, in regards to my request to have this user banned from editing WikiProject Israel articles. Nobody seems to have come up with a resolution and the user continues to monitor my edits and edit them accordingly. I was advised by User:LessHeard vanU, a Wikipedia administrator, to ask people close to Israel articles and topics to give a third opinion. So please come by and discuss the issue. -NYC2TLV (talk) 18:07, 12 October 2008 (UTC)

Taking the project forward
Recently I've been browsing around the various pages on WP Israel, including the participants list and the 'to do' list, and noticed that the project has seriously neglected its maintenance tasks. I also noticed that by now we have completed the groundwork for the project in terms of articles, and there are articles for almost all important Israel-related topics (special thanks to Number 57 for the locality articles). However, with each new article I write, I realize how many more articles we still have to create and maintain. Recently there doesn't appear to be much discussion about the project's aspects, even though a handful of dedicated editors are still doing a lot of work in creating/improving articles.

I suggest taking the following steps to take the project forward: I think this needs to be done because the project maintenance pages are clearly not maintained right now. By now the project has over 5,000 articles, and the amount of activity on the actual project pages is staggeringly low for that number. In case this proposal is opposed, there still needs to be serious cleanup/update of the participants list and the to do list, at the very least.
 * 1) WikiProject maintenance: Appointing a coordinator (or several)—we're not as big as WP Military History or WP Biographies, but, quoting the WP:MILHIST coordinator page, since experience suggests that people tend to assume that someone else is doing whatever needs to be done, it has proven beneficial to formally delegate responsibility for this administrative work to a specified group.
 * 1) Article creation—right now it seems like every contributor is doing their best in whatever field they're interested in, and we don't have a clear list of articles that need to be created/improved (the to do list, even if updated, won't clarify the dozens-hundreds of articles for creation, etc.) I support keeping this as it is, except one change: we need to create a set of internal red links, pointing to articles that need to be created; red links for notable topics should be encouraged, not discouraged like they are now. Only then can we assess a series of "wanted articles" and start working on them. This includes creating navigation boxes for every topic where all members of it are notable and need an article—even if the topic has 1-2 out of 20 articles or so (e.g. Israel Police chiefs).
 * 2) Article maintenance: Basic sourcing—there are certain web pages which have simple statistical information on various topics. We all know CBS population lists, MOOMA for musicians, etc. The problem is that many articles which could use these pages as sources do not. In some cases (especially regarding populations), this creates subtle vandalism, and in other cases it just impedes the article's improvement. This is a long-term and non-urgent goal, but just remember to insert the stock source if you're editing small articles. Specifically for locality articles, there are more things that need to be added, like nikud and pushpin maps. I'll create regional pushpin maps eventually to help with that.

Thoughts and comments are appreciated. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
 * My comments:


 * 1) Nice idea, if someone is willing to do it. I don't think I'm experienced enough for that. I'd suggest you, but wouldn't wanna pull the DIY argument :) If you volunteer, I support.
 * 2) Agree. And I have an idea, now that you're bringing this up: The election articles (such as this, have the number of seats won by each party, but not the names of the MKs. That would help in that. Number 57 would probably be probably the man for this job, he has a gift :)
 * 3) True enough. I'm not sure about MOOMA or the nikud, but CBS stats are definitely important, as are pushpin maps. The best thing to do, IMO, is simply split into "workgroups" (hopefully, it will be more than the two of us) and assign each a to-do list of regional councils. -- Nudve (talk) 05:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I actually thought about workgroups, but then realized that there are only three members (Number 57, you and myself) active in this WikiProject as a whole. There are more members who occasionally come to chat, but I've seen little activity on the actual pages. Not sure how a workgroup can be made in light of the circumstances, but I support the suggestion in principle and any ideas on how to implement it would be welcome. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 11:28, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Regarding Nudve's point two above, I am planning on creating lists of Knesset members for each Knesset (see Knesset members), which then would provide redlinks for all past MKs - I'm down to the last 12 sitting MKs at the moment. There are a few other politics templates which need completing, e.g. Israeli governments, Israeli ministers, Israeli presidential elections. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:46, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Nice. Ynhockey: about the workgroups, we just need to know exactly who's on board, and then handing regional councils. What's been your strategy so far? -- Nudve (talk) 16:57, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What strategy do you mean? Finding out who's active, or adding CBS data to articles? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:24, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I meant the latter, but the former is also important :) -- Nudve (talk) 17:38, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving to left

There is lots of interesting CBS data out there, and if one takes the time to browse the website, they can find a plethora of information to add to Wikipedia. However, there are three basic pieces of info that can be added:
 * Population - AFAIK the CBS is supposed to publish population estimate charts every quarter, but they do so every half-year. The latest one (again, AFIAK) can be found here, which contains all 1,000+ localities. There's another one somewhere in .xls format for all localities. I use the following ref for the figures (you only need to copy & paste):


 * Jurisdiction - IIRC there's an Excel (.xls) spreadsheet listing all the municipal and sub-municipal jurisdictions in one place, but I don't remember its location, and it would make a worse citation than a PDF anyway, so I use this page which lists all municipalies (scroll down to land use on each page). The ref is:
 * For each one, you need to change the URL and title, and maybe the ref name (many articles have refs named "profile" which are different).
 * For each one, you need to change the URL and title, and maybe the ref name (many articles have refs named "profile" which are different).


 * Demographics, education, income, etc. - again you can use the profile sheets, but there are newer ones here (no land use statistics). Use the ref:

Hope that helped! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:12, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion about Holocaust
Our agreement is that Holocaust scholars are speaking about "only" 6 Holocaust Extermination camps (stupid definition but ....). Our disagreement is about creation of sub section other extermination camps. With knowledge that there has been many others extermination camps and sites (I know 7 of them) question is: Will we create subsection in The Holocaust template for this camps ? Can you please hear your comments about this question in section Non involved users ?--Rjecina (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Universities and colleges in Israel
Another editor created articles on two colleges in Israel, Afeka College of Engineering and Kinneret College, which were immediately tagged for deletion as blatant advertising or copyvio. I salvaged the two articles by replacing them with neutral stubs, but they're just stubs now. I'd like to encourage someone to create stub articles for every college and university in Israel that is not already the subject of an article, with interwiki links to the corresponding article in the Hebrew Wikipedia. -- Eastmain (talk) 13:47, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

A template too far
An editor has started adding Current Knesset members by party to a few articles. Personally I feel that this is far too much, and have removed it. What are others' thoughts before I TfD it? пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  16:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm with you. It's cumbersome, and the MK's own party is enough. -- Nudve (talk) 17:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've fixed it up (from this to this). These templates exist for things like Template:Current U.S. Senators for instance, so I'm not sure it's too much, if anything it's an effective way to see all 120 MKs. Epson291 (talk) 04:23, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * It's still far too big, and I don't see why it's necessary if we have Category:Members of the Knesset and List of Knesset members already. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  08:51, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's too bad, but what are some others opinions? Epson291 (talk) 01:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The new one is certainly an improvement. I'm not sure if it's better than having a separate template for each party. -- Nudve (talk) 15:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

First stage of earlier suggestions
Now that my RfA is over and the weekend is here, I want to start working on the project again, especially the technical aspects, per my earlier suggestions. I believe that the first step of cleaning up the project pages should be the participants sheet. I propose two steps:
 * 1) Removing clearly inactive users or users who clearly don't participate in the project.
 * 2) Sending a message to all the remaining participants strongly urging them to watch this page and participate in project discussions. While it's easy to make decisions with just 3 active editors, it's also unfair and against the spirit of consensus.

If there are no objections, I will start with these steps ASAP. Cheers, Ynhockey (Talk) 14:57, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Good luck! also, I can't decide regarding the previous discussion (see above) about the MK navbox. I'd like to hear your take on it. -- Nudve (talk) 15:10, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I avoided that section because I'm ambivalent on the issue. IMO the big infobox is a good-faith desire to avoid recentism—we certainly don't want to create 13 or so templates every time there's a new Knesset (and it's somewhat useful to be able to jump from Likud MKs to, say, Israel Beiteinu MKs), but the big template is also impractical. Epson's version is as close to a compromise as I can think of, but I really can't decide what's better (Epson's version or the current situation). -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that's pretty much my dilemma too :) -- Nudve (talk) 15:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I was thinking it could be reduced in size by just showing surnames and leaving out the internal party divisions (see it now), but I've just realised that one party (Justice for the Elderly) had been left off. I guess this hints at a future problem - if a Knesset ends up very fragmented with loads of small fractions, the template will grow even bigger. I don't mind creating new templates - the only one likely to be needed according to current polls is a Greens one, and the Gil one will be deleted anyway. But now it's smaller it's starting to grow on me. Thoughts? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Now that you mention it, the new template may have an archival benefit: We can duplicate it as "Members of the 17th Knesset" and use it for its members, including ones who won't be there in the next one. Do you think that's a good idea? -- Nudve (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Seems like a good idea, thanks to the autocollapse option. I support. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 11:53, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

As a follow-up to the above 2 steps, I also propose creating an Israel–Palestine taskforce, the only viable taskforce on this project at this moment IMO (in terms of activity), because from a simple analysis of the member list, it's clear that many participants are here only for Israeli–Palestinian conflict-related articles. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:23, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * What for? There aren't that many of us here, and already there's WP:IPCOLL. -- Nudve (talk) 16:33, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree about IPCOLL, but certain users insist on being part of WP Israel because they technically edit Israel-related articles (2 users have been particularly vocal in this respect when the project was started, but I won't name them here), but make zero edits to articles outside of the conflict's scope. In all, there are at least 4 such users on the current participants list. Therefore, as far as I see it, there are three solutions:
 * To agree to change the WikiProject's scope and goals specifically not to include conflict-related articles, but leave a clause stating something like "The Israeli–Arab and Israeli–Palestinian conflicts are outside the direct scope of the project, although the project works closesly with WP:IPCOLL and should be notified of important issues related to the conflict and discussions".
 * To leave the situation as it is now.
 * To create a task force.
 * I believe that the first is impractical because the conflict is an integral part of Israel (unfortunately), and few WP Israel members never edit conflict-related articles. Moreover, we probably won't gain consensus for such a move, and it would also require significant modifications to WP:IPCOLL and the way it works. The second isn't good (IMO) because it creates a misleading picture for the participants page, listning participants who are not actually interested in the general scope of the WikiProject. Therefore, I believe that the final option is best. What do you think? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 17:04, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, if you don't mind doing that, go ahead :) -- Nudve (talk) 17:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Back to the MK template, I like the idea of archival benefit, it's a good idea, and the last names are good too. Epson291 (talk) 07:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * On a side note, I got rid of the Collaboration of the Week tab. Epson291 (talk) 07:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think I'd now be happy to put the all-encompassing MK template on pages, but regarding having one for each Knesset, Wouldn't it lead to over-templating people like Shimon Peres (who's already got loads) and Meir Vilner (who would have 12 templates)? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  10:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * What do people think of the current version, which has been coloured by government/opposition? And also about the possibility of having government ministers in bold? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  20:30, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You have a point. I was thinking only about the 17th Knesset, and was not considering creating a template for every one all the way back to the first. Then again, there's no reason make the 17th an exception, so I don't know... I think the coloring and the bolding is a good idea, although maybe there should be a legend for clarification. -- Nudve (talk) 05:56, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It could only be done if it was templates within a template. But anyways, the colours look good, and sure bolding the ministers is also a good idea. Epson291 (talk) 07:19, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Sound files
I'd like to create a list of articles in the to do list that would benefit from ogg's sound files for their names. Would anyone of the project with a good accent be willing to create them? There's a bunch from a user User:Itamar, back in 2005, but he is no longer active. (people like: Olmert, Lieberman, Livni, Barak, places like: Negev, HaKotel, words like sufganiyot, Tzahal, etc...) Epson291 (talk) 12:12, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I could do it, putting on a Ben Gurion accent. Some may disagree with my pronunciation of resh, he and het. Speaking of which, unfortunately Itamar made clearly incorrect pronunciations of some words/names :( Thanks for linking to the contributions—will make it easier to weed them out. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:03, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that would be great if you could. I noticed you fixed his pronunciation for the IDF.  There are 73 all together here and a good deal of them are his.  Let me make a short list of articles I think could really use some of these sound files, I honestly think sound files for names of people/things are great, better than any transliteration system used (because most will not know them). I think these could really use it:

People
 * Olmert
 * Avigdor Lieberman
 * Livni
 * Ehud Barak

Cities/Areas
 * Ramat Gan, Rishon LeZion, Ashdod, Petah Tikva, Holon, Bnei Brak, Bat Yam, Ashkelon, Rehovot, Eilat, Tverya
 * Golan Heights
 * Negev
 * Yam Kinneret
 * Arad (I know you've put a lot of work into this one)

Defence
 * Tzahal

Jewish
 * Western Wall
 * Hanukiah

Food Epson291 (talk) 12:23, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Sufganiyah
 * I really don't know how long it takes to make this sound files, probably uploading it is the biggest hassle, but I think I got most of the important cities (I don't really think Tel Aviv would need one). Epson291 (talk) 12:31, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've created files for most of the stuff you wanted. It's true, uploading is the greatest hassle (as well as adding to the articles). I will start adding the files to articles today. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:21, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * P.S. I'm not sure how to pronounce Livni's middle name. Grammatically, it should be Malká, but the name is usually (colloquially) pronounced Málka. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * LOL! I've just listened to Petah Tikva, and am trying to imagine English speakers trying to ask for directions based on it. Kudos on the effort, nonetheless! -- Nudve (talk) 14:11, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It could be like the Arab guy who asked for the medicine in You Don't Mess With the Zohan :D but seriously, this is the correct pronunciation. I don't speak that way in 'real life' either, but lament the fact that a small group of modern Israelis bastardized the language to the point that it became norm. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Good job, I think I've added all the ones you've uploaded to the articles, plus categorized the audio files. What happened to Petah Tikva I can't find it. Epson291 (talk) 22:26, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think either way on Livni is fine, I forgot Beer Sheva, that only has the Arabic pronunciation. Epson291 (talk) 22:28, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I added the audio files to the infobox, not sure why you also added it to the prose, but it doesn't matter anyway. I'll work on the other stuff tomorrow. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 22:34, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Missed that (I was only looking in the prose). Either way its in all the articles now. Epson291 (talk) 22:41, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

New category class template
Most country WikiProjects have a working category class, and we had a broken one on the WikiProject Israel template. Therefore, I decided to copy WikiProject Ireland and create WikiProject Israel category, which should be added to all Israel-related categories. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:39, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
 * For consistency, can you change the text of the template to be the same as the existing article one. Epson291 (talk) 00:57, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, I forgot I protected it. Sorry. Will make the change now. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 01:13, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Wizman Shiry
Is this how the name should be spelt? I have also seen Weizman suggested as an alternative. пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  15:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Assuming his name is indeed pronounced with an a sound (like Chaim Weizmann), not Vitzman, then the name should be Weizmann Shiri, or Weizman Shiri. The MfA seems to use this as well. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The Knesset website spells Wizman, as does Globes, for example. -- Nudve (talk) 18:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think they copied the Knesset, but keep the sources coming! We need more to determine what to use, even though strictly from a transliteration viewpoint, it could even be Vaitzman or something. But the German Weizmann seems the most logical here, as it's well-recognized by English-speakers. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:37, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Moses Montefiore Windmill
One paragraph seems to be offending some people. Israel and its peoples is not my area of expertise. Please see the talk page for details and a proposed solution. Assistance fron members of this project would be appreciated. Mjroots (talk) 03:34, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Dead Sea canal and Two Seas Canal
I'm pretty sure these two articles should be merged, but I'm not sure how. Dead Sea canal seems to be the better sourced article and the one with interwiki, but I'm not sure if it's the common name. Any thoughts? -- Nudve (talk) 07:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, they talk about different implementations of the same concept, and can go together well in one article, but on the other, it is possible to create normal articles out of both. There have been quite a few proposals for the Mediterranean-Dead Sea canal which can be written about. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 08:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Banner Template problem
Something is wrong with you banner template code arround this point "|category=" I think - loads of ordinary article are being assigned to the "Category:Category-Class Israel-related articles" - which surely isn't right. :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  09:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not sure why this problem exists, but I fixed this by self-reverting on the banner page. Will investigate if I have time. Thanks for letting us know! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Articles needing geographical coordinates
Category:Israel articles missing geocoordinate data contains a list of articles about places in Israel that cuurently lack geographic coordinates. As of now, there are 367 articles in the list.

Adding coordinates to these articles will allow users of Google Maps and other location-aware services to find these articles on maps, as well as putting them into Wikipedia's own internal atlas.

The articles are all marked with coord missing tags, which need replacing with coord tags that contain their latitude/longitude coordinates -- alternatively, you might want to enter the coordinates into an infobox, before removing the coord missing tag. You can find out how to do this at the Geocoding how-to for WikiProject members. Please let me know if this is useful! -- The Anome (talk) 14:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've done a few in the past week, could do many more but it's just not that fun. I think it's not helpful to add a 'coord missing' tag to articles about every building, park, railway station, etc., but actual settlements (villages and towns) are a priority and I will try to add coordinates to all of the Israeli ones in the coming week. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Jewish Virtual Library
Following a discussion at talk:1982 Lebanon War, I started a discussion at WP:RSN, regarding the reliability of this site. Someone told me a discussion was once held on this issue, but doesn't remember exactly when and where. Perhaps someone here remembers? Anyway, contributions on this would be welcome, as this site is often used on Israel-related articles. Thanks, Nudve (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Transliteration of Ness Ziona and the word "Illit"
Image of me (talk) 18:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) I strongly oppose the transliteration "Ness Ziona"; I believe Ness Tziyona or Nes Tziyona should be preferred. Although WP:HE states that we should use widely-accepted English transliterations of Hebrew words, the name of the city does not contain the word "Tziyon" (Zion), but rather the word "Tziyona", which means "to Zion". "Tziyona" and the nonexistent "Ziona" don't even sound alike! By applying the same logic, the Dunayskaya station should be called "Danubesakaya" and the Varshavsky Rail Terminal should be called "Warsawsky".
 * 2) What do you think about the names Nazareth Illit, Modi'in Illit and the other Illits? I think the double-L is wrong. It's there because of the dagesh hazak, but according to WP:HE the dagesh should be ignored. Otherwise we'd have Nahariyya, Ma'ale Adummim and Mevasseret.
 * Ness Ziona isn't spelled that way because of just WP:HE, it's the clear and undisputed WP:COMMONNAME. About Illit, I agree that they shouldn't be doubled, and not sure why they are. I didn't really care about this and didn't bring it up, but now that you did, I believe we can make the moves as long as no one opposes in the next few days. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:11, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * A double-l in Illit helps stress the fact that it is Ill-it, rather than Ilit (to rhyme with fillet). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  22:01, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any pronunciation difference between Illit and Ilit... Do you mean that it moves the stress from the second to the first syllable? Most Hebrew words have a stress on the last syllable, and we still don't double the preceding consonant - take for example Tel Aviv, Ashkelon, Kfar Malal. Image of me (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Can you please explain about Ness Ziona? Why is it undisputed and what is it based on? Image of me (talk) 05:14, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Image of me about Illit. Pronunciation isn't the ultimate consideration here, and this applies to almost all transliterations on WP:HE. Not sure why Ilit/Illit should be any different.
 * About Ness Ziona: It's the common spelling used in English for the word. You can't entirely say that it's a 'standard Anglicized name', because it's not a really famous place like Jerusalem where most English-speakers would immediately recognize it by that name, but it is commonly used in English. I'm afraid that I have no absolute definite proof of this, but a 'Google test' makes this indication very clear (Ness Ziona, Nes Tziona, Nes Tziyona, Nes Tsiona, etc.) If there is no proof or indication to the contrary, I don't see how it can be claimed that this is not the common name in English. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:02, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Gush Shalom
Please weigh in on a dispute concerning Gush Shalom. An editor has written that they are as much a "left wing organization" as a peace organization, and is trying to change the first sentence to give undue weight to their left-wing orientation. Your opinions would be appreciated. Thank you. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 02:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Merging of Arab villages to current locality
Please let your views be known about this. See: Talk:Arab al-Samniyya, Talk:Kafr Lam, etc. Chesdovi (talk) 13:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
 * In general, I strongly support the idea. Don't forget Yazur/Azor. However, there are some exceptions which I can't think of off the top of my head, where I would oppose. Another problem is who is willing to skillfully merge the articles. Just copying and pasting text won't be very helpful. Good luck with the initiative! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:26, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Noticeboard for Israel-related topics
This page has existed before the WikiProject, and since the WikiProject's inception seems completely unnecessary. I believe it should be preserved for historical interest, but there should be no link from the WikiProject, and the noticeboard should have a notice saying that all discussions should go to WT:ISRAEL. Thoughts? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds good, no reason to have both. Epson291 (talk) 00:49, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I also support scrapping it and redirecting it here - it's merely a duplication. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  01:18, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Epson, the page is Notice board for Israel-related topics. Please don't add tags to talk page comments. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 01:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. Epson291 (talk) 02:06, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I know I have not been around much lately, but I support this as well. It is better to have a consolidated effort in one, easy to find place.  That is why I started the project, wanted to take it to the next level.  Glad to see that this step is going to be taken.  --יהושועEric (talk) 06:21, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Amos Ke(i)nan
A while ago there was a small dispute between a new user (Salome1969 (talk · contribs)), Nudve and myself regarding the transliteration/spelling of the last name Kenan/Keinan in the article Amos Keinan. Per WP:HE and other guidelines, it should be Kenan, because there is no clearly-established common/English name, and WP:HE transliteration says Keinan.

However, Salome, who is apparently the daughter of Amos Ke(i)nan, has been e-mailing me with requests to do something about this, and has brought up some arguments in favor of Kenan. I won't disclose anything from the e-mails here, but ask that a more thorough review of the case be made. I'm not giving an opinion in this new discussion, but the previous one may shed some light. Relevant links: User talk:Salome1969 and User talk:Ynhockey. I will also post an RfC to get input from non-WP:ISRAEL editors. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:39, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Apparently the RfC template ruined the page formatting. I didn't find a way to fix this, so if anyone knows please do so! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 15:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment - While I admittedly haven't made it very clear in the post, what I really meant by this whole Request for Comment was whether we make moves contrary to guidelines at the request of 'primary sources' or not, when the case is borderline? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 22:14, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Although I don't have strong views on this, I would normally transliterate the name as Keinan. But he is probably best known to English speakers for the novel The Road to Ein Harod, which was published in English under the name Amos Kenan. So that is probably the most likely spelling used by people looking here for information, and should therefore be the title of our article. I also notr that there are 3030 Google hits for "Amos Kenan", and only 778 for "Amos Keinan". Although we do not decide because of Google results, this too indicates that Kenan is the more likely spelling used by English readers. RolandR (talk) 00:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I've moved it and Rona Keinan as well. Thanks for your comments RolandR. Cheers, Nudve (talk) 08:30, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

2008 Israeli bus crash
I've just created this article and suggested it for an "in the news" feature if anyone fancies expanding it. Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  12:20, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Licensing
I'm unsure the licensing for this image (File:Dizengoff Square.jpg), I got it from He Wiki (he:קובץ:Zina.jpg), where it says its PD but I'm unsure (it could be fair use but I don't know). Epson291 (talk) 03:21, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is PD if it was first published before 1958. Can you find out? -- Ynhockey (Talk) 04:45, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The image very well looks like its before 58 though I'm not sure, I'll contact the uploader. Epson291 (talk) 12:11, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Happy Hanukkah WP Israel!
Happy Hanukkah Y'all! Unfortunately, Wikipedia only has 1 image of Sufganiyot :( but yeah I guess it's enough for our entire WikiProject! (see right). LeHaim! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 18:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * חג שמח לכלם! пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:57, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Deletion discussion
See Articles for deletion/Israeli British. Badagnani (talk) 04:10, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Right Wing Bloc and Left wing Bloc
This is a discussion from Talk:Israeli legislative election, 2009: since I had no response from number57 - I moved it here.

He deleted the table claiming that Shas is currently in Kadime (Center or Center-left) coalition, and thus can not be put in the column of right wing-block -and so I have explained the followings (but received no response):

(the table below might also explains why israelis foresee Benjamin Netanyahu the next prime minister, should those polls be correct on election day here)

--89.139.95.239 (talk) 10:17, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

-

See here

--85.250.243.74 (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

If a right wing party like shas or UTJ (both orthodox religious right) sees that the left block has already got a majority, like in this Knesset they have 63 (out 120) without "Shas" or "UTJ" - they might as well join the coalition government, not because they like it, but because the left already has a majority without them, and in order to balance the left block from going far left as well as preserving their budget interests.

Or right after elections, should the left block have something close to a majority like 57-59, and the rightwing block has like 40 (and the rest are non-affiliate), and the right wing block can never form a majority coalition government in the Knesset, and since elections were already held, they will give the left block the last majority vote and keep them away from going far-left.

Only should it be their "second choice", should parties like "Shas" and "UTJ" (orthodox religious right) would join the left-wing block. Otherwise, they work to support right-wing block.

Non-affiliate: All kind of One-subject parties, like "Green Party", or "Gil" (elderly people) is considered a left wing subject. However, a right or left in Israeli politics, is being determined on the way you think about the negotiations with neighboring Arab states and other such matters, which will eventually lead to the way you choose to side with in the Knesset - which all those "one subject parties" usually don't emphasize in their election season, and eventually on the "negotiating with the Arabs" subjects each of their member vote his own mind, and only on "Green" and "Elderly" subjects, do they vote together.

--85.250.243.74 (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

What about the table?

 * There are 120 seats in the Knesset, which makes a majoriy 61 seats and above.

--89.139.95.239 (talk) 23:36, 25 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi anon! The reason we didn't include the left wing vs. right wing blocs is that for many parties there is not clear orientation. Other than Avoda and Meretz on the left, and Likud and Jewish Home on the right, one can argue about the orientation of every other party. If you have a reliable source which makes a clear division between the blocs, you can add it, but if that source is the poll itself, then IMO the distinction should be added only to the specific poll's column. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 12:25, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * As I stated on the election article talk page, I also believe this table is inappropriate for several reasons. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  12:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Ynhockey and Number 57. It's generally better to avoid editorialization as much as possible. -- Nudve (talk) 16:10, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Read carefully what we wrote on talk page:


 * A definite no. It's OR to speculate what the coalitions will be before the elections are over, and especially OR to label Kadima as left-wing or Shas as right-wing, when both could be said to be the other (and Kadima are by definition a centrist party). Given that Labor, Shas and Likud have ended up in coalition in two of the last three governments, is it really sensible to separate them?  пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  12:38, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * even Likud and labor may end up in the same coalition-government (so called "Unity Government") that does not make them any different.


 * As I have explained parties affiliated with the right would work for a right wing coalition, however, if the situation does not let them have a right wing coalition, they would join an already existing left coalition, in order to preserve their budget interests and to keep the left bloc from "going far left". This is not a "speculation", read all Israeli newspapers how they make up the numbers I have laid in the above table here and here - for example.


 * and Kadima defines itself as "centrists", however, since they are running against the Likud, de-facto the pollsters count them with left-bloc, and also because the left people will always prefer to serve under Livni, for example and not under Netanyahu - read the papers and the links I have provided (And I took off the red color from them, and renamed the bloc as "Center-left bloc", as they are now referred by the pollsters.


 * Number 57, if someone who is not familiar with the system, is reading the current table in the article, he may not understand what is going on, since he just sees a bunch of numbers here and there and it is unclear where are the trends are leaning, changing etc.


 * I strongly suggest you would reconsider.


 * --89.139.95.239 (talk) 13:18, 26 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that even those of us who are familiar with the system are not in the position to say who will go with who in the next government. If Likud wins, Netanyahu may prefer to ally with Kadima than Shas. Best to leave speculation out of the article. The only important number is that the party with the largest number of seats (i.e. which one is most likely to be asked to form the government), and the current format makes it quite clear which one that is. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:40, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

If those of us who are familiar are not to say that, then pollsters shouldn't either, and polls shouldn't be published in the article at all, cause what is less known is how much each party will get eventually in the voting booth, rather then a more familiar fact that parties like UTJ identifies itself with the right, and would join a left coalition only as a "second choice", when a right wing coalition is not possible.

But what is more important, is the fact, that the number of seats (i.e. mandates) that each major party gets (Kadima, Likud) is not necessarily the determining factor of who is going to form the government, but rather how many other parties supports them, that will make all together 61 and above votes/seats.

This is what the pollsters are trying to determine as a "winner". For example if kadima and Likud are equal, currently the right wing block has more seats, and would make Netanyahu the PM, or even if he gets less then Kadima, although it will hurt his negotiation position, if his bloc all together has 61 seats and above he is the winner (this week the newspapers discussed Netanyahu loosing seats, but to right wing parties, so all together didn't hurt his chances: "Likud looses six seats in two weeks").

Another example is Menachem Begin, who won in 1977 year - 48 seats as a record number, so how people called him "the winner" - if his party didn't have 61 ? They determined it by his right wing bloc - and this what unclear in the article.

--89.139.95.239 (talk) 17:58, 26 December 2008 (UTC)


 * In addition, a "Bloc" is not a "coalition". People use the term "Bloc" during election season, to refer to those who either are identified with the right or left bloc - to eventually make up a potential "coalition", based on their ideology.


 * --89.139.95.239 (talk) 18:21, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Usfull links to election writers
All polls - All the time, (updated daily), Uzit.co.il

All links - to all news papers' sections on elections (and other relevant links on 2009 elections), Uzit.co.il

--89.139.95.239 (talk) 19:32, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

Operation 'Oferet Yetzuka'
The operation in gaza these days is named after a line in an Israeli children son for Hanuka - is there an article about this operation ?

--212.117.137.193 (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

--212.117.137.193 (talk) 08:58, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * See Operation Cast Lead. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 16:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Album and songs titles
Where can I find guidelines regarding transliteration/translation of song and album titles? I saw that in most articles titles are left in Hebrew. So is this title wrong? Image of me (talk) 06:17, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, WP:HE is the only guideline on this. -- Nudve (talk) 07:51, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
 * There is no specific guideline AFAIK, but often Israeli artists have official English names for their albums for promotional purposes, and those should probably be used in most cases (given that no Israeli album I know of is so popular that it has a widely recognized name). This page (although I haven't read most of it) may also be of some help. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 14:30, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Unit of the Minorities
This article discusses this unit in present tense, and includes the Bedouin battalion. The Hebrew Wikipedia refers it to the 299th Battalion ("Herev") which is Druze unit, while the Bedouin unit (Battalion 585) has a different article, besides being subject to the Gaza Division, not the Minority unit. Can anyone shed more light on this? -- Nudve (talk) 13:24, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I have a book about it (IDF in its Corps, vol. 14), but it's from 1982 when there was an umbrella unit called Minorities Unit, commanded by a colonel. I have no idea how or why the unit broke down after that, and will look for sources whenever I can. According to HeWiki, the Herev Battalion is also called the Minorities Unit, but I'm not sure at all if it's related to the real unit that functioned from the War of Independence. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 20:01, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I suppose there is a historical connection between the Minorities Unit and the Herev Battalion, but I think the current presentation is garbled. The options are either switching to past tense, since the source discusses the 1948 war, or renaming the article. -- Nudve (talk) 06:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Yossef Muadi, a Arab citizens of Israel was killed fighting along with the Israeli army
He is from Yirka village

mentioning in 'operation cast lead' article? what you think?

--212.117.137.193 (talk) 10:53, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

--212.117.137.193 (talk) 10:56, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

He was corporal Yossef Muadi, a corporal in the Israeli army (read the inter-wikipedia-link in the title above on Israeli Druze, they align themselves with the Jews since Israel's creation and as opposed to Israeli Muslims fight in the Israeli army, many of them are high ranking officers

--212.117.137.193 (talk) 13:51, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Israel lobbying in the UK
Readers may be interested in the discussion here--Smerus (talk) 10:36, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I want to draw readers' attention again to this article. A persistent editor, with some support it appears, is trying to adapt this article to put forward an essentially anti-Israel and/or arguably anti-Jewish POV, citing material from David Irving, trying to rope in the Jewish Board of Deputies, etc. Please assist in monitoring and cleaning this article up.--Smerus (talk) 21:47, 18 December 2008 (UTC)


 * So you want to draw attention, but when the attention includes criticism on something like israel, then you start to cry? For attention? Next thing, you'll call someone anti-summutithing. What have you been doing sincs dec 18? Anyway, stop bombing the White phosphorus (weapon). -DePiep (talk) 01:16, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Israeli channel 10 reported last night that rocket firing on Israel has been reduced in 50% since day one!
mentioning in "operation cast lead" article? --212.117.137.193 (talk) 16:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Great. So? -DePiep (talk) 01:05, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Israeli National Archive
I want some pictures to illustrates the Yom Kippur War article. One of the best sources I can think of for these would be the Israeli government. I recently asked Danny if Israel has something equivalent to the US National Archive, and he told me they do, but (because of language issues) the request should probably come from someone who speaks Hebrew. Is there anyone here who can do that for me? That is, ask them if they have pictures they'd be willing to give us? (NB: This suggests strongly that they own the copyright on those pictures outright) Raul654 (talk) 06:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi Raul654 and thanks for the interest you're taking! Unfortunately, I don't believe that the Israeli government will release the rights for any of its pictures where copyright applies. They might allow Wikipedia to use some images, but this won't make them free, which defeats the whole point. Even so, I'll ask Dror (deror avi) from the Hebrew Wikipedia about it who is an expert on these things and might've attempted something like this before. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 07:06, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia Israel is working on several projects with this regard - the government does not release pictures, but there is a project to upload free pictures from the public. The chair person of the Chapter - Shai Yakir - may assist. Deror (talk) 10:07, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Articles for deletion/Roof knocking
Anyone who knows Hebrew please chime in here. Is this a notable term in Israel? Editors are "ghit counting" and surely the ghits won't reflect hebrew-language sources.-- brew crewer  (yada, yada) 08:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi,
 * I think the hebrew for "roof knocking" is l'defawq al h'gag. I don't know how accurate it is, as my hebrew is very basic. Also, I do not know if that phrase itself(as I have written it in hebrew) is notable. I am sure that "roof knocking" is notable, but not necessarily my attempted translation. However, it might be a starting point to go off of. Hopefully, we can get someone who is a better hebrew speaker to help out.


 * WacoJacko (talk) 14:58, 10 January 2009 (UTC) WacoJacko (talk) 08:28, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

2008-2009 Israel-Gaza conflict
If you have the stomach for it, this article is basically about Operation Cast Lead, and could use serious help in developing a NPOV article. All welcome! Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:34, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Not strictly Israel related, but...
I'm trying to determine what the best Hebrew equivalents would be to the Western Australian town names of Albany (EL-beni rather than AWL-bany), Bunbury, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie and Mandurah (pron "MAN-jrah"). If anyone has any ideas, I'd be most grateful. If it's completely off topic for this board, feel free to contact on my talk page or by email. Orderinchaos 13:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have a Hebrew world atlas at home, so everything I say is strictly unofficial, but it should be something like this:
 * Albany -> אלבני
 * Bunbury -> באנברי/באנבורי
 * Geraldton -> ג'רלדטון
 * Kalgoorlie -> קאלגורלי
 * Mandurah -> מאנדרה/מאנג'רה
 * If anyone knows for sure, please feel free to correct me. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 13:34, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say באנברי is better for Bunbury (as the "bury" part is usually pronounced "berry"), otherwise I agree with the rest. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:00, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much guys - much appreciated :) Orderinchaos 00:36, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Make that: Mandurah doesn't appear in the atlas I got these from, unfortunately. Hope it helped! -- Ynhockey (Talk) 19:48, 18 January 2009 (UTC)
 * אולבני (Albany)
 * בנברי (Bunbury)
 * ג'רלדטן (Geraldton)
 * קלגורלי (Kalgoorlie)

Photograph request - British consulate in East Jerusalem
Hi! Would anyone mind photographing the British Consulate in East Jerusalem?

It is at 19 Nashashibi Street, Sheikh Jarrah Quarter in Jerusalem - http://ukinjerusalem.fco.gov.uk/en/

As security is tight around there, please be careful if you choose to photograph the mission - thanks :) WhisperToMe (talk) 07:23, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Userbox for Israeli ex-pats in America
There's at least 200,000 Israelis living in the United States. I'm sure a number of them are on Wikipedia, possibly some who contribute to WP:Israel. I therefore have created a userbox honoring that for anyone who wishes to display on their userpages. Enjoy.

Valley2 city ‽ 02:13, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Mitchell Bard: Privacy violation?
Mitchell Bard seems to contain info on his family potentially in violation of Biographies_of_living_persons and Avoiding harm. I haven't looked at the article's history and don't know who contributed this. Could somebody please take a look at the article and see if it's okay? (I don't need to discuss this - just wanted to mention it.) Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think its a privacy violation, but I just deleted the material since it wasn't sourced and had nothing to do with his educational background. --GHcool (talk) 01:08, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Reconstructionist Zionism
Hi, I just wrote this article on the movement to re-establish ancient Jewish political or semi-political institutions of power in Israel. It is rather hazy and is barely based upon any Google returns for verification, but I think that it is a better way to detail this movement and its current manifestations in Israel; the guys who are trying to re-establish the Sanhedrin and the others who are trying to build the Third Temple, for example, are indicative of the move to reconstruct religio-political institutions that existed during, at least, the Hasmonean and Roman periods, but don't necessarily fit into mold of Religious Zionism (which is mostly about religious settlements and the enshrining of halakha into Israeli law). I'd like input on this, thanks. --Toussaint (talk) 02:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for pointing this out. I've created an AfD here.  --GHcool (talk) 06:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Antisemitic incidents alleged to be related to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict
Please see: Articles for deletion/Antisemitic incidents alleged to be related to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict. Chesdovi (talk) 00:19, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Template:Jewish Communities depopulated by the Arab world
Also maybe Template:Jewish Communities depopulated in history. 00:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Despite centuries of violence and racism, there seems to be no Jewish template equivalent to the Palestinian Arab villages depopulated template. I've seen some type of a list on historical accounts and certainly we have the Jewish exodus article as a stand alone; But for neutrality's sake, there is room to add some historical information about the wiping of of 3000 year old communities in Europe and in Arab countries as well as the original Jewish diaspora into an easy to navigate template. Thoughts/Suggestions?  Jaakobou Chalk Talk  00:11, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that's a great idea, especially in the way you phrase it. Adding this category to the article on Algiers doesn't quite have the same ring to adding the Palestinian category to Umm al-Faraj.  The Jewish community of Algiers was sizable, but nobody would argue that Algiers was a "Jewish town" in the sense that it mirrors an "Arab town." It seems less like trying to inform than trying to pick a fight.  --GHcool (talk) 01:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I support the suggestion. How we go about it is another question! Chesdovi (talk) 00:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Unless it focusses on Jewish-only settlements that were depopulated, I can't see the sense (if the intention was to include places like Algiers, like GHcool states, it just seems like some sort of POV retort to the Palestinian villages template). пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  11:38, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Are there any independent articles about specific depopulated Jewish communities to put in such a template? If not, perhaps a list would be a better idea. -- Nudve (talk) 14:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Know someone in Tel Aviv? Help a featured picture drive about Israeli history
Hi, looking to make contact with someone who knows the White City well. I've located seven archival images c. 1920-1936 of construction in Tel Aviv. Restored one as a sample, visible here. Need to identify at least one street address, preferably with a recent photo. If it's possible to verify that this is a World Heritage Site being built, then encyclopedic value should make one of these a strong featured picture candidate. Best regards, Durova Charge! 01:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The building you linked to doesn't ring any bells, but it's impossible to know every single building, and it would probably be difficult to identify one based on construction shot. If you post more pictures, I'll try to identify them, but IMO the article about the White City should only have pictures of well-known buildings. Can you please tell us more about this FP drive? I don't think we have a single featured picture related to modern Israeli history (or modern Israel), so unless there's a good photographer with good equipment around Tel Aviv, I can't see how this can work. I can take 'quality' pictures though with my new DSLR camera, so if you need anything specific, let me know. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 01:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Jewish terrorism -> Neo-Zionist political violence ?
There has been long discussion and disputes around the article Jewish terrorism. According to the different points of views in different talk pages : The article Neo-Zionism explains the origin of these wording used by different scholars working in the field of sociology and study of nationalism... What would you think about the move from Jewish terrorism to Neo-Zionist political violence ? Ceedjee (talk) 10:50, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * "Jewish" dimension should only be religious and not ethnical, and therefore Jewish is not clear
 * (added) on the contrary people think this is an arbitrary limitation
 * the "zionist" dimension in the causes of Jewish terrorism should be emphasized
 * "terrorism" still remains a wp:words to avoid and political violence is more neutral.
 * It seems to me (mostly from the infobox) like this article exists mainly is part of the terrorism series that also includes Christian terrorism and Islamic terrorism, so the religious aspect seems to be the main thing here. Asides from that, since the article just mention Kach and the Gush Emunim Underground, it might as well be merged into Violence in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, since that's where Terrorism in Israel redirects. -- Nudve (talk) 11:28, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I think you are right about the "origin of this article" from the infobox.
 * The issue is that people claims there is no reason to restrain "jewish" to the religious meaning and they want to extend add there, eg, IZL and LHI actions and they require wp:rs sources that would justify jewish terrorism is only religous.
 * My mind is that considering the jewish word in this expression as ethnical and not religious is racist but I don't have a wp:rs source to support this point.
 * The move to Neo-Zionist political violence would solve this and other issues.
 * (nb: could you come and give your mind on the talk page of that article ?) Ceedjee (talk) 11:40, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Israeli music: Danny Ben-Israel
Is this the best place to note this stub I just wrote? Danny Ben-Israel - I'm interested in finding out more about him myself! - David Gerard (talk) 21:45, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Netafim
I have added the project tag on the talk page and rated the class as Start, I am not sure what level of importance you give to the page. When I was at Hatzerim I also took a picture of their main offices and added to the page. I thought someone good with Israeli could add it on the Israeli article also. On the talk page there seems to be some concerns on the articles neutrality. It seems okay to me, but some other people might want to double check that. Govvy (talk) 18:26, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

GA Reassessment of Israeli West Bank barrier
Israeli West Bank barrier has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Articles are typically reviewed for one week. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:53, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Operation Badr
Hi, please take a look at this article Operation Badr (Yom Kippur War). It's full with mistakes and wrong numbers and it definitely needs an israeli pov. Nirvi (talk) 19:57, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

AfD
Ceedjee (talk) 21:20, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Articles for deletion/Antisemitic incidents during the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict (2nd nomination)

Yehoshua Cohen Picture
Hi all, I've just finished writing an article on Yehoshua Cohen, and I'm trying to find a picture to go with the article. There is a picture on the Hebrew version of the article יהושע כהן, which appears to be a fair use image, see. I was wondering if someone who speaks Hebrew would be kind enough to take a look at the fair use rationale for that image and determine if it would be suitable for use in the article. Thanks. Cool3 (talk) 18:28, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It is a fair use image, although there's no real rationale. The source doesn't give any information about the picture, either. -- Nudve (talk) 18:50, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Darn, that's most unfortunate. Thanks for looking, though. Cool3 (talk) 18:59, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Fatah
Can we get some experienced eyes on Fatah? There is a dispute over whether Fatah used to be designated a terrorist organization. THF (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It looks fine to me the way it is. --GHcool (talk) 17:56, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, well, the current version is. There's a tendentious and dishonest argument going on in the talk page by an anti-Israel editor that could change that. THF (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Hmmm.
 * That is not that easy. When I read his arguments, I think you both are good faith but it seems you both have wp:rs sources that claim the contrary of each other...
 * I had in mind the PLO had been designated as terrorist while the Fatah, not. Exactly the same way as IRA and Sinn Féin but I don't have particular knowledge on the topic.
 * I think you should both try to understand the origin of this contradiction from other wp:rs sources.
 * Ceedjee (talk) 20:39, 24 February 2009 (UTC)


 * His source doesn't contradict mine, because his source is talking about a post-1996 legal classification, and I'm talking about United States foreign policy before 1989. The point is now perhaps moot because the other editor in question is a now-banned sock-puppet. THF (talk) 20:47, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group
Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. &mdash; Delievered by §hepBot  ( Disable )  on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:43, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Defunct political parties
Unless someone has evidence to prove otherwise, I am planning on moving the following parties into Category:Defunct political parties in Israel; Atid Ehad, Democratic Choice, Herut – The National Movement, Hetz, Justice for All, Natural Law Party of Israel, Oz LaAniyim, Shinui, Tafnit, The Right Way and Yamin Israel.

Regarding several others, I am unsure whether they still exist as factions within other parties:
 * Arab National Party (part of the UAL?)
 * Ahi (merged into Likud, or just in alliance with it?)
 * Jewish National Front (members moved to Eretz Yisrael Shelanu?)
 * National Religious Party (officially disbanded and members joined the Jewish Home?),
 * Tkuma (disbanded when members merged into the Jewish Home/new National Union?)

Thoughts/corrections? Cheers, пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:02, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * AFAIK, those parties are indeed defunct. Besides, if one (or more) of them makes a comeback, we can always remove the category, right? -- Nudve (talk) 16:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Cheers. Also, any idea about whether Tzachi Hanegbi's first name is actually Yitzhak (as suggested in an old version of his article)? пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  16:19, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I was pretty sure of that five minutes ago, but since then I have been unable to find reliable sources to support it... -- Nudve (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think that it is dubious to label parties 'defunct' without sourced information, including the pages that were boldly recatted. Since when do we edit WP on assumptions?! --Shuki (talk) 07:24, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Judea and Samaria / West Bank
New arbitration case opened: Requests for arbitration/West Bank - Judea and Samaria
 * --Shuki (talk) 07:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan
There is a debate going on here and here regarding the addition of a statement in the article on Turkish Prime Minsister Recep_Tayyip_Erdoğan in the section on his views on Israel and the Palestinians. The controversial statement is: "'Soner Cagaptay of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted that shortly after the Davos incident, Erdogan hosted Salva Kiir Mayardit, the Vice President of Sudan, who is being indicted for his role in the Darfur genocide. Cagaptay brings up this fact to note that Erdogan's action at Davos were less about humanitarian concern than they are about what Cagaptay calls a 'civilizational view.'" I welcome more voices to be heard in this debate. Thanks in advance. --GHcool (talk) 23:35, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Infoboxes:
I have compiled a partial list of articles with either incorrect or missing infoboxes. If anyone has the time to work on them, even slowly (one at a time), it would be much appreciated!

Caesarea Einav Hashmonaim Hodayot Ma'ale Hever Nahalal Neve Ativ Sha'arei Tikva Shim'a Talmon Telem, Har Hebron Tzofim Yirka
 * Incorrect:

Alei Zahav Amuka, Israel Aseret Ateret Atzmon Ayanot Ein Gedi Ein Harod Ein Hatzeva Ein Hod Ein Tamar Ezer Ezuz Hamaam Hatzeva Hispin Idan Kahal Kalanit Kanaf Karkom Karmei Tzur Karmei Yosef Katif (moshav) Kedar, Gush Etzion Kedma, Israel Kerem Ben Zimra Keshet Kiryat Netafim Kfar Chabad Kfar Galim Kfar Hananya Kfar HaRif Kfar Malal Kfar Mordechai Kfar Tapuach Kidmat Tzvi Klil Korazim Lakhish, Israel Liman Livnim Ma'abarot Ma'ale Amos Ma'ale Gamla Ma'ale Mikhmas Ma'ale Shomron Magen Shaul Ma'on, Har Hebron Maor Margaliyot Meishar Menuha Meron, Israel Migdalim Mikhmanim Misgav Dov Mlea Moledet Morag Nahala, Israel Na'ura Nehora Neot Golan Neot HaKikar Nes Amim Netzer Hazani Neve Dekalim Nili, Mateh Binyamin Nimrod Nir Hen Nirit Nir Yafeh Nisanit Nitzana Nitzanei Sinai Nofim Noga, Israel Nokdim Nov, Golan Heights Ofra Otniel Otzem Parod Pe'at Sadeh Peduel Prazon Rafiah Ram On Ramat Magshimim Ramot Naftali Reihan Revaya Rimonim Rumana Sa Nur Sapir Sde Eliezer Sdei Trumot Sde Moshe Sde Warburg Sgula Sha'al Shahar, Israel Shaharut Shavei Shomron Shdema She'ar Yashuv Shefer Shekef Shezor Shiloh, Mateh Binyamin Shorashim Sulam Sufa, Sinai Tefahot Tekoa, Gush Etzion Tirosh Tlamim Tzofar Tzurit Umm al-Qutuf Uzeir Yakir Yardena Yitzhar
 * Missing:

Again, this is a partial list! There are probably about as many articles with missing/incorrect infoboxes. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 01:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

William James Fitzgerald
A new article about a key figure in the British administration in Eretz Israel in the 40's, which I have translated from the hebrew Wiki. As my English is not that of a native speaker, can you help improve the article's English? Is there anything else that needs to be done with this article? Pelegisrael (talk) 15:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I've made a few changes - mostly issues about capitalising the start of sentences etc. пﮟოьεԻ   5  7  15:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Editing done. Needs sources. --Ravpapa (talk) 16:44, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you both very much. The article's sources are listed as "Further reading" and "External links" Pelegisrael (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

PRODs on List of Israeli politicians and List of foreign-born Israeli politicians
List of Israeli politicians and List of foreign-born Israeli politicians have been proposed for deletion via WP:PROD by some people 76.66.193.90 (talk) 05:50, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Foreign Ministry to upload pics?
An article in Ynetnews today states that the Israeli Foreign Ministry and its Consulate General in New York are planning a PR project to upload video/photos of Israel to sites like "Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Facebook, Twitter and Flickr, as well as be featured in several blogs." Obviously any free media is welcome, but strangely the article writes "The Foreign Ministry will maintain the copyrights to all photos, thus making them available for public use free of charge." Joshdboz (talk) 14:15, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi
another new Israeli related article, can someone here improve the article's English? This woman played an important part in the second Aliyah, and was the wife of the 2nd president. thank you. Pelegisrael (talk) 11:18, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

A land without a people for a people without a land
This is an old article that I have just spent some time expanding and balancing. I am having a problem with a single monomanical editor who stubbornly insists on hanging inappropriate cherrypicked and neutrality tags. His stated objections are not valid or simply untrue. His only real objection is that he doesn't like the article, which he has tried and failed to have deleted via an AFD. I would appreciate some advice on how to keep the tags off the page. unless, of course, some of you read it and agree with him.Historicist (talk) 00:52, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Ack, not a single online source. Makes it quite difficult to review. However, it's a decent article. What I don't like is that in the later sections it presents a disorganized collection of quotes and assertions, without any kind of structure. There needs to be some sort of structure as to what arguments exist for or against taking this phrase literally, at least. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 01:36, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The Garfinkle article is available online if you have access to a university library. I admit that I own most of the books that I cite.Historicist (talk) 10:57, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I am troubled by the implication that using sources not online is a problem. There are two academic articles devoted to this article.  One is only online through JSTOR.  Many of the books are too new to be on books gogle.  Yet we surely do not want an encyclopedia that excludes recent scholarship?Historicist (talk) 11:15, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have now followed your suggestion to organize the scholarly sectionHistoricist (talk) 12:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I have put up a bunch of links to books google. I don't know enough about books google to know if these will work going forward.  they work now.  It would be easy to put up more.Historicist (talk) 13:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I think you are on very thin ice with this article. You may be right that the phrase was not current among Zionists, though this is disputable. "The settlers [of the first and second Aliya] did not, of course, consider the country 'empty', as did some Zionists abroad. What they saw with their own eyes contradicted the ludicrous dictum attributed to Israel Zangwill, 'The land without a people for a people without a land,' which was current in Zionist circles abroad at least until 1903, and to a lesser extent until as late as 1917." (Amos Elon, The Israelis: Founders and Sons, Sphere Books 1971, p.154).

But regardless of the currency of this particular slogan among Zionists, the view that Palestine was a vast wasteland, uninhabited or inhabited by a few nomads, was widely held among Zionists in the beginning of the 20th century. Here is a typical Yiddish pioneering song:

We are, we are, we are Pioneers, Pioneers! On burning fields, On barren fields of waste, The first to arrive... (quoted in Elon, p. 117)

The proceedings of the Zionist conferences in Basel never mention the presence of an indigenous population in Palestine. This lacuna reflected a general European view that native peoples of the third world were essentially invisible. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx called the people of Asia and Africa "barbarians." And Max Nordau, arriving in Palestine, is said to have exclaimed, "but there are Arabs in Palestine! I didn't know..." (quoted in Elon, p 154).

So Khalidi, quoted in your article, may or may not be correct in attributing the slogan to early Zionists, but he is certainly right in his statement that "In the early days of the Zionist movement, many of its European supporters--and others--believed that Palestine was empty and sparsely cultivated."

Though ostensibly focusing on the slogan, the article appears to be an attempt to refute the contention that early Zionists considered Palestine a "land without a people"; and that, conversely, the early settlers were somehow more realistic and, perhaps, fairminded regarding the local population. I think that is why people are putting neutrality stickers on it. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:32, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps you are not aware of some of the newer scholarship on early Zionism. Anita Schapira, for instance, describes the early Zionists as aware of the Arabs who lived in Palestine, but as choosing to ignore them. As she describes it, the Zionists knew that there were Abars on the land, followed events in Palestine closely, even armed them. She suggests that examining the published record is misleading because the Zionist leadership conducted a two-leveled discourse, realistic discussion of the Arab problem in private, rose-tinted portrayals of Eretz Israel in public. She compares Zionist descriptions of Palestine to the popular immigrant-promotion propaganda of the day, put out by steamship and land companies to inform potential European immigrants about the mild winters in Dakota. Gil Eyal (who is, as you probably know, pro-Palestinian) has very interesting detail in ‘’ The Disenchantment of the Orient’’ on the debates among early Zionists who closely followed the development of Palestinian Arab nationalism.

No Zionist were ignorant of the presence of Arabs after Ahad Ha'am published. (1891) Frankly, I doubt that many were even before that date. Recent scholarship on the regular visits of meshulachim from Hebron, Safat, and Jerusalem in all Jewish communities, on special collections taken up for the welfare of the communities in Eretz Israel after events such as earthquakes, pogroms and the Muhammad Ali invasion, on flows of European Jewish aliyah the regularly followed close on the heels of imporvements in conditions in the land, and on the circulation of news letters detailing  events in Eretz Israel  make it clear that nineteenth century European communities followed events in Eretz Israel closely indeed.

Palestine, of course, was sparsely cultivated by European standards. We tend to forget that the Greek orange-growing industry along the coast is younger than modern Zionism. Khalidi himself in Palestinian Identity has an interesting section on the nineteenth-century depopulation of the Galilean lowlands due to the inability of the Ottoman government to prevent Bedouin raids. Documentation of similar depopulation in Greece makes an interesting comp. Egypt, notoriously, never again achieved its Byzantine levels of population after the Arab conquest until the British period.

Two things appear to have been true at once. The land really was undercultivated by European standards. And the Zionists knew all about the Arab Palestinians and preferred not to talk about them. But that is not what this particular slogan was about.

The plain facts of the slogan are certainly that it was coined by and widely used by Christian Restorationist. They knew that there were Arab populations (most of them had been to the Holy Land) The plain meaning of the phrase in their minds was that the Arabs of Palestine did not constitute a separate nation (a people) but the Jews did. They made a distinctionbetween (a people, i.e., a nation) and (people) To men like Keith, “give Judea to the Jews”  followed naturally from the Bible.

Whether Jews every used the phrase in the pre-statehood period beyond Zangwill has yet to be proven.

This page, however, is confined to this one slogan.Historicist (talk) 11:41, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I have revisited and again improved the page. Enacting your suggestion to add more on the deliberaate Zionist refusal to pay attention to the existence of Arabs.Historicist (talk) 12:34, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

A land without a people for a people without a land
I am at a loss re: how to deal with an endless argument on this page.

annoynmous has  what turns out to be a long-standing animus against this page. He has tried an AFD and failed. Recently, he has performing Herculean labors (i.e., removing well-sourced, scholarly material, edit-warring,  endless reversions mostly evading the  3RR by letting 24 hours pass, and endless repition of the same invalid arguments on the talk page) in an effort to keep two tags on the page, one for neutrality and one for cherrypicking.

He defends the cherrypicked tag on the grounds that the original editor was a puppet and, according to Annonymous, worked for a Zionist outfit. The cherrypicking tag has been repeatedly dismissed by multiple editors (and the tag removed by multiple editors) on the grounds that  it does not matter who the original editor may have been and the article is now heavily sourced.

The neutrality tag I have addressed by improving the page to include multiple points of view to the satisfaction of multiple editors.

Annonymous’s real objection appears to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT. He asserts that he "ha(s) zero interest in the content of the article", and, “regard(s) the whole article to be a joke.”   Certainly, he has made no attempt to  introduce new sources, although he has  aggressively removed material he does not like. His real problem appears to be that the article draws on  multiple, reliable sources to make some points inimical to an understanding of history that many anti-Israel activists hold dear. Tags are not meant to stay up forever. They are meant to prompt improvements, which I and others have now made. Despite meeting all of his content objections, Annonymous insists on putting tags up to reveal that an early editor of the page was a Zionist puppet. He is much given to such heroic declarations as : “I however will not tolerate the whitewashing of the history of this article,” “I will not tolerate the removing of the tags,” and  ''“I will not (ac)cept attempts to whitewash the history of this article and that fact that it was created by a sock with a biased agenda. That means the neutrality and cherrypicked tags stay.”' “If you ask me I think this article should be deleted and the subject should be moved to an article dealing with the history of zionism. I tried to get it deleted last year, but I was overruled.'' and "I decided if the article is gonna stay …it’s going to have tags.”

I realy would appreciate some fresh eyes on this page.Historicist (talk) 11:26, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Israeli-Palestinian conflict article
There's a developing controversy of sorts going on at the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Certain editors are trying to rewrite the history of the 1948 war. Please keep this article in your watchlists. --GHcool (talk) 23:29, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Gilad Atzmon
Some editors are trying to sanitize the well-documented antisemitism of this Israeli out of the article. Additional eyes needed. THF (talk) 19:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Some editors are trying to hi-jack the project with their smears of people who hold a different POV from themselves. In this case, the subject of the article is not even a politician, he's a regular guy who is fortunate enough to be self-employed and is more difficult to damage except by public attacks on his character. 86.155.143.94 (talk) 19:15, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Demographic threat
I came across this article which, like Right of return and Right to exist in their early versions was written to make it look as though this concept is unique to Israel. I have begun a revamping of the article intending it to look more like Right of return and Right to exist, i.e., placing Israeli concerns in the context of similar concerns in many countries. I would especially appreciate it isf someone would take a few minutes to read the Israel section, which I have not yet touched, and edit for NPOV and brevity.Historicist (talk) 14:20, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

far-left, left, centre, right, far-right
Is there an objective consensus for describing whether an organization is right, left, far, centre? If not, are WP:RS descriptions enough? Which RS are legitimate, which are not? Is it legitimate to accept Haaretz calling Yisrael Beitenu far-right, or a Christian source calling Meretz far-left? Can both be documented? The base of this discussion is because I think that the MEretz article should mention that some view it as a party on the far-left, while two other editors claim it is not and refuse to accept the sources from the media. --Shuki (talk) 09:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus or policy on this matter, and each case should be examined separately. On the issue of Meretz, I believe it should be called left-wing, but there is zero reason not to include somewhere in the article that it is viewed as far-left by many, as was done for Avigdor Lieberman and Yisrael Beitenu. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 11:35, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I would say that the far left label is reserved to non-Zionist parties and views. The distinction between right and far right is less clear, but a possible separator is the issue of "population transfer". Any case, this is not a major point and a label's purpose is just to give the reader a general pointer to the politics of the organization or individual. Giving details regarding a "debate" as to whether the said party is left or far-left is not important enough to be included in Wikipedia, as opposed to more concrete criticisms and evaluations. Mashkin (talk) 11:48, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Shuki, you're misrepresenting your actions here. You haven't stated that the Meretz article should "mention" that it is sometimes described as far-left - rather, you first insisted on having it as the sole description of the party in the first sentence of the introduction, and then moved it to the second sentence of the intro. Like Ynhockey, I don't have a problem with it mentioning it somewhere in the article (probably under a section dealing with its security policies), but having it in the introduction is nonsense; there are sources that describe Likud as far-right, but I wouldn't expect this to be mentioned in the intro for that article. пﮟოьεԻ  5  7  16:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not misrepresenting anything. I'm bringing up the subject so that one convention can be used for all parties, not based on the POV of some editors or Mashkin's or your assumptions. In most of the articles, the right/left term is not sourced at all. --Shuki (talk) 18:33, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I tend to agree with Ynhockey and Mashkin. I think the policy to observe here is WP:ASF: pinpointing the exact position of a political party is not really a matter of cold, hard facts, but rather an analysis. When stating a political orientation as fact, I think it's generally preferable to stick to the relatively neutral descriptions of "right" and "left". After that, the article can go on to discuss various views of the party. -- Nudve (talk) 11:17, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Judaising Jerusalem
New article. It is certainly not NPOV. My question is, is it useful? i.e. should it be improved, or is it a better candidate for an AFD?Historicist (talk) 01:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * This seems like POV pushing to me. I'd vote for it to be deleted.  Please keep us informed.  --GHcool (talk) 03:41, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:PR (no wp:rs secondary sources) & WP:SYNTH (gathering of poved opinions from, at best, journalists) --> WP:AFD Ceedjee (talk) 06:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I also think it should be deleted. Other than being inherently POV, it's also partly a copyvio, with certain sentences copied verbatim from the source. -- Ynhockey (Talk) 10:12, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Should we go ahead with an AFD? -- Nudve (talk) 11:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * An AFD would probably be best. Nudve. will you put it up?Historicist (talk) 14:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, after some trouble, as you can seee. I hope this won't affect the discussion. -- Nudve (talk) 16:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)