Talk:Palestine

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I'm not sure if characterizing the original population of Palestine as "mostly Muslim" is completely accurate, but Id have to check the stats. A very large number of Palestinians are Christian. The original Imperial Mandate was Palestine and Trans-Jordan, which includes present-day Israel, the Occupied Territories, and Jordan. The original two-state solution, which was planned out about as well as the Indian Partition, was to divide the entire Mandate at the Jordan, with a Jewish state to the west, and an Arab state to the east. As in India/Pakistan, this created huge population shifts, displacements, refugees, etc, and long-standing problems. Anyway, it's hugely complex. I personally think that if Clinton's plan had been accepted and implemented, we would be a little closer to a two state solution. The Bush admin has completely ignored the entire problem.--PalMD-yada yada 14:52, 3 June 2007 (CDT)

Please, feel absolutely free to contaminate my little masterpiece with your so-called "facts" if you want. Damn facts. Take all the fun out of writing articles! You might also want to check my contribs and follow around injecting a dose of your liberal so-called "reality" into some of my other brilliant creations. humanbe in 14:59, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
I only include facts where requested to, or where they cannot be avoided. I'm happy to keep my facts away from you, but I do try to help you out on your little projects. My strong point is not wiki, it's writing, so feel free to hack me to bits or to ask me for help. I'm very hard to offend.--PalMD-yada yada 15:02, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
You used a whole bunch of facty-type things in that paragraph above. Knock yourself out, and edit the crap I wrote at will. Just try to use paragraphs; an edit commment saying "wiki help please" is bound to bring someone over to make sure it is done. The well done text is the most important part. If you have footnotes, just paste them in ugly where they go, in parentheses if you can't figure out the wiki markup. Someone will fix it soon enough. humanbe in 20:02, 3 June 2007 (CDT)
Hey Bunchanumbers (158.143.165.215): enthrall & in thrall mean entirely different things - go buy a dictionary Susanpurrrrr 16:13, 2 March 2008 (EST)


Piss-poor article. Palestine has been around for thousands of years, going back to pre-Roman times. In the modern sense, England created Palestine/Trans-Jordan, and the Balfour declaration proposed western Palestine as a Jewish state, and trans Jordan as an Arab one. There were MANY Arab Christians included, as well as Muslims, Beduin, and others.-- Asclepius staff.png-PalMD --Take two aspirin and call someone else 14:15, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Palestine as a region has been around for ever. What actually makes a nation (Shared national identity, religion, culture etc.) has had two spells, first it was the Jews in their Ancient promised land and then it was the Muslim Arabs, who came in the early Middle Ages and largely settled there (I'm talking about cultures that have lasted, the Byzantines didn't leave a permanent mark on it). But little seperated Palestine from say Syria or Egypt, both Islamic countrys who are nations in their own right. Thats why the emphasis was on Palestinian being Arab as opposed to well being Palestinian. Then again, the last sixty odd years has created a Palestinian nation in every way we would associate a country with a nation. I was trying to make that clear in the little bit I added there today but probably not too successfully... MarcusCicero 17:23, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

Contents

[edit] Palestine/Israel conflict

I think it might work better if we have the articles about each country (or whatever you want to call them) be relatively neutral to slightly favorable. Then we should have an Israeli/Palestinian conflict article that analyzes the good, the bad, and the ugly. That way, neither "country" article will present one-sided snark or commentary, and the conflict article will contain both sides in one place. Any thoughts on that? (posted on both talk pages) humanUser talk:Human 19:51, 15 March 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Gut most of this article and start again?

This article is embarrassingly bad. If no one has any objections I'd like to delete most of this article and rewrite it. --TheEgyptiansig001.png 22:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Oyoyoy

How about an article about what Palestine's actually like? This article is fine entertainment; it's useless in every other respect. ConcernedCitizen (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

It's a "wiki", you're an "editor". Edit the wiki, why don't you? Pippa (talk) 20:56, 20 June 2011 (UTC)
Before you make significant edits, please discuss any changes you intend first, thank you--"Shut up, Brx." 21:23, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

I'd just be changing a few of the references to "ethnic cleansing" making them somewhat more neutral. ConcernedCitizen (talk) 13:44, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. As much as I'd hate to admit it, this article gives Israel waaaaaay too much leeway, while Likud jackasses like Netanyahu speak of peace and yet do shit to actually help the Palestinians out (and in many ways do all they can to antagonize them) and, thus, promote a coninuation of the violence and bullshit. Recklessly Noise Punk What's this button do? Uh oh.... 13:13, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Trying to clean this up

Added some of the histprical information regarding the mandate, historical relationship in the area but avoiided the discussion over whether Palestinians existed rior to the modern era as being irrelevant to the article. Expanded references to someof the better known commentators left out, one liberal (benny Morris) and one more pro-Israel (Yoav Gelber); expanded on the recent decisions to seek statehood and the international reaction; expande don other issues being visited and the stances of some organisations that lead to issues in the area. References have been given to all the changes made — Unsigned, by: AllonY / talk / contribs 16:23, 26 December 2011

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) Thank you. ωεαşεζόίďWeaselly.jpgMethinks it is a Weasel 16:36, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your contributions to this article. However, I feel the older version is a bit more relevant to our information and is a bit more to the point regarding our website's mission goals. Recklessly Noise Punk What's this button do? Uh oh.... 17:24, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] FFS

From our recent trouble makers latest edit

Gaza is completely controlled by Hamas who took power in a coup against Hamas when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the area. However, while Gaza is completely under the control of Hamas with no Israeli presence, access to Gaza is suvject to Israeli control and an Israeli blockade of their airspace and coast line.

So Hamas took power in a coup against Hamas. Either this is total bollocks or it needs a lot more explanation about how Hamas held a coup against itself. This guy has no interest in co-operation and it force feeding his pro Israeli viewpoint. I'm not saying he's wrong, but I am saying he's going about it in the wrong way. He certainly doesn't understand the idea of a wiki, or it would seem, cooperation. We need to put the break on this before all out war escalates and he annexes more territory. Bad Faith (talk) 23:03, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

You're mis-reading that, I think. I've read it a million times already and it says Hamas took over power from the Palestinian Authority. Recklessly Noise Punk What's this button do? Uh oh.... 23:05, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Nope, he is correct. Initially I had a typo, saw my error and went back to correct it. seems that I am a troublemaker for making the factual point that Israel does not control Gaza, but Hamas does. Or maybe I'm a troublemaker because Gaza seized it in a coup against the PA. Dunno, either way, the information is factually correct, includes the information about the Israeli blockade and hardly constitutes troublemaking!AllonY (talk) 23:15, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
No, you're a trouble maker because you barge in and start making drastic changes to an article on a highly sensitive subject. You have no interest in discussion - you just want your own way. You put a huge spin on things to distort them to back up your POV - the "naming of Palestine" bit is a typical example of that - it was named Palestine long, long before the Romans re-adopted the name. Furthermore your editing is so intemperate that you're making endless boo-boos like the one that I picked up on. I guess we'll have to do what we always do when a one issue troll like you barges in. Bad Faith (talk) 23:27, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Wrong, it was NEVER called Palestine until the renaming of the area by the Romans. It was earlier referred to as the area Pheleshet as the Philistines lived there, but since the {Philistines were Aegeans, and related to the Greeks, they are completely unrelated to the Palestinians. And as much as you would like to believe I'm an one issue troll, reality just doesn't agree with you. Yes, initially I barhed in and made a mistake- hey, it was my whole second post on the site LOL My recent edits do not change the tone of the article merely add a historical context to the name and correct a factual misstatement of control of Gaza, while including the fact of the Israeli blockade. AllonY (talk) 23:42, 26 December 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, seen a few sources now that give Herodutus in the fifth century as the source of the name Syrian Phyllistina. I'll edit it to reflect the arlier referenceAllonY (talk) 23:51, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Examples of bias

The removal of the fact that the British mandate of Palestine was not that small an area- it was ovet 115000 square kilometres,of which 88000sqare Kilometred were removed to make Transjordan. 11,000 square kilometres were assigned to the Jews, 14,000 square kilometres to the Arabs. After the Arabs refused the partition plan and tacked Israel in 1948, Israel captured additional territory, resulting in them controlling 20,000square kilometres, and the Palestians, between Jordan and the areas occupied by the other Arab nations, 93,000 square kilometres. Refusing to add this in is an attempt to abrogate historical fact and to try and claim that the Jews got the majority pf the area under the partition plan which is completely inaccurate. AllonY (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


The removal to the references about Jewish refugees is a supreme example of bias and trying to pretend that Jews were not expelled, forced from their homes and had their possesions stolen from them. It white washes the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the area and surrounding area in order to paint the Jews as oppressor and refusing to acknowledge their were Jewish victims. This is especially revelant given the fact that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palesu=tinian authority wish to continue with this ethnic cleansing if they gain control of the areaAllonY (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

The refusal to allow it to be mentioned that the Jews acceoted the partition plan is an example of bias. The article tries to pretend that the Jews were against the partition and refused to accept an Arab state. This is blatant historical revisionism as the Jews accepted the partition plan.AllonY (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Refusing to allow a reference to the fact that Hamas is listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and Eu, and refusing to allow a link to their charter demonstrating they call for genocide of the Jews and refuse to recognise diplomatic agreements recognising Israel and peace with Israel is a clear example of bias and desire to hide the facts. It is these clauses in the Hamas charter that are directly related to the ability to negotitiate peace in the region as they claim that such agreements are not valid, and on top of that want to destroy all the Jews in the region. AllonY (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

So the question is, what is more important to this site, being relevant or being seen as puching historical revisionism to revile Israel? AllonY (talk) 14:33, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

And yes, the removal of references which are not completely Pro-Palestinian and out to villify Israel is another clear example of bias. All that is, is a complete form of censorship in not even allowing the mention of books that conradict the Pro-Palestinian line of the references utilised here AllonY (talk) 14:36, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

1. I am less interested in how much land the British Mandate allotted to whom than I am in unpacking the idea that the contemporary borders of the Middle East, and all of the problems associated therewith, have a lot to do with the exercise of European imperial power. The League of Nations and the Mandate system were firmly grounded in imperial discourse, and appealing to British/League promises as away to justify current national boundaries begs the question of what right these people had to be making the rules in the first place.
2. Go ahead and put in whatever you want about who accepted the partition plan. But for fuck's sake, step up your writing skills when you do.
3. Same with Hamas; but also, acknowledge that their are many, many other states that do not see Hamas as such. Also, solid references re: your claim about Abbas and the PA would be nice. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 14:43, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
1 It is highly relevant. Trying to claim that the Palestinians were disadvantaged and given only a small area is historical revisionism. Like it or not they did not control the area anymore than the Jews did. Prior to the Jews controlling the area it was controlled by the Ottomans, with the vast majority of the land owned by the Ottoman government! Pretending that the Palestinians owned the land is historical revisionism. Ignoring this fact is a clear case of bias.
2 I will, thanks
3 Actually the reference for Abbas and his call for there to be NO Jews in Palestine is already in the article at the end of the part about UNESCO. I included it here to show why the information about Jewish refugees is relevant, as the historical context shows the statement by Abbas to not be emty, but a repetition of what the Arab governments have done on the past, raising the issue of why ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries has been ignored.AllonY (talk) 14:53, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
1. I didn't say it was irrelevant. What I said was that it leaves unasked what is to me the important question; by what right did Great Britain and the League enjoy sovereignty over the area and have the ability to make promises to anybody. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 14:56, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
1. Actually it doesn't leave the question unasked at all. Britain was given control of the area after the Turkish joined with the Germans in the First World War and lost. The principle in international law that land acquired in a DEFENSIVE war can be annexed applies here. However, Britian did not annex it, but rather handed part of it directly to the Arabs as Jordan and submitted the remainder to the partition plan of the UNited Nations. No question is unasked, it is very clear what happened under international law — Unsigned, by: AllonY / talk / contribs
"Britain was given the area" in 1919 by whom? The League--a collection of mostly European states who worked together to perpetuate European imperial rule once the Ottoman and German empires collapsed. Here's a radical idea; why weren't the residents of places like Tanganyika, South-West Africa, Cameroon, and Palestine simply given sovereignty over the lands previously under German/Ottoman control? The racism inherent in the League's mandate system needs to be addressed in any discussion of why these people were denied the ability to govern themselves. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 15:23, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah, so you want to ignore international law and advocate anarchy... When 80% of the land in the area would be declared ownerless, exactly how many warlords and tribal groups would have ended up fighting for it and trying to grab the land? We see the effect of warlords grabbing land and the effect on the civilian populationj in Somalia and many other African countries. We saw a massacre of hundreds of thousands of Matabele by Shona in Zimbabwe when there was a shift in power (a necessary one but with an unintended consequence). Yes, just leaving it alone and letting anarchy and the one with the most people to wield their guns has been shown to be a truly fantastic method of land distribution in the past. Even so, this discussion does not alter the simople fact that the partition of the land under the UN WAS legal and shows a very different picture to just calling it "a small piece of land in the middle east"
The other thing you are not addressing is the inclusion of the fact of the Jewish refugees- pure historical revisionism to white wash the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countriesAllonY (talk) 15:40, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Information about the Jews in other countries can go into articles about those particular countries. I'm not advocating anarchy; but saying that the only alternative to imperial rule and the denial of local sovereignty is anarchy is a straw man argument; moreover, not dealing with the roots of that anarchy in imperial rule in the first place, not interrogating an "international law" that allows foreign powers to rule over a people without giving those very people a seat at the table when said law was constituted, and not thinking about how the law is wielded as a tool with which to perpetuate fundamentally unjust systems of rule means that you're not even close to talking about the real stakes of the question. PintOfStout Talk Good people drink good beer. 15:46, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Filling out the history

Hi, I added more on the history of Palestine up to 1948. I'm hoping that's ok. Mcc1789 (talk) 03:01, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

[edit] removed temporarily for clarification

"There was no general objection among the Palestinian people to the Jordanian occupation of that territory between 1948 and 1966."

Probably could use a citation - and a reason for being where it was. ħumanUser talk:Human 03:31, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Arabs settled in the land after the Jewish expulsion?

Arabs were trader and they have contract with Jews beforegho2t993--Gho2t993 (talk) 18:59, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Thank678fru5you. PowderSmokeAndLeather: Say something once, why say it again?.Moderator 19:02, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Mandate, Memorandum, etc. woof woof

I'd like to see a bit more discussion of the terms of the Mandate for Palestine and the Transjordan Memorandum, and their relation. That said, I am going to have a hard time presenting anything resembling an decent unbiased treatment of the issue (sorry, I read the two as supporting the creation of exactly two states in the original mandatory area, which included Transjordan (i.e. went east to mandatory Mesopotamia (Iraq)); this is generally regarded, however, as thoroughly incorrect, and I may be guilty of motivated reasoning). Therefore, if anyone else wants to help with this... PacWalker 04:13, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to? If you mean the British involvement then you can easily argue that the Empire followed a very strictly legalistic interpretation of at least its promises to the Zionists, if not to the Arabs. Given the rather dubious nature of the whole League of Nations mandate[wp] business (essentially a slightly veiled version of old-school imperialism with Wilsonian window dressing), the British "reneging" on their rather deliberately vague promises to the Zionists (note quite deliberate phrase "homeland", not "state" and explicit guarantees for Arabs), the British stayed within the Balfour Declaration. What the British and French did do was to screw over their WWI Arab allies something royally through the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Rather than independence from the Ottomans and some form of Arab state(s), the Arabs were simply incorporated into the French and British Empires with the flimsiest of promise of self-determination (which, quite in Wilson's spirit seem have had an invisible "for white people only"-clause attached) "when they were ready"[wp] - and guess who got to decide their state of readiness...
I certainly wouldn't have liked to try to take either the British or French to court for breach of contract over their implementation of the LoN mandate framework in their respective spoils from the Ottoman carcass. Neither French-ruled Syria and Lebanon, nor British-ruled Palestine and Transjordan should be viewed as proto-states, the Transjordan memorandum[wp] notwithstanding, but simply as imperial provinces which were administered differently according to the tastes of London and Paris based mainly on the wish to retain these provinces within the empire. Was this the discussion you were looking for, PacWalker? ScepticWombat (talk) 09:16, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
...I may have misread Article 25 of the original Mandate badly (as in yes I did), and well yes, I think some or all of this same material would benefit the history section, since the present conflict does to some extent toss its roots back this far. So for example maybe the brief version of "WWI -> haha suckers -> circumstances surrounding the British withdrawal". I might have a go at it later today, I suppose. — Unsigned, by: PacWalker / talk / contribs 09:33, 26 March 2015‎
Cool, I look forward to reading it. :-) ScepticWombat (talk) 10:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)
This is like Wikipedia minus the grouchiness. I like. PacWalker 00:46, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
Full disclosure: Me and Walker here are siblings.--Madman (talk) 03:18, 31 March 2015 (UTC)The Madman
To use your own beautifully stupid term, don't self-dox. PacWalker 04:50, 31 March 2015 (UTC)
I will be your librul edit police.--Madman (talk) 19:08, 31 March 2015 (UTC)The Madman
Why are you on der RatWik at 1408 on a weekday? PacWalker 19:45, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Please add history about the 1920, 1921, 1929, 1936 massacres of Jews by Arabs in the region.

If you want a rational article, you need to add the history of ethnic cleansing by Arabs when they destroyed the Jewish community in Hebron during August of 1929.

You need to add the historical facts of the Nazi-Palestinian Arab collaboration before, during and after WW2. It started with the Hitler and the Mufti and ended with Arafat being trained by Otto Skorzeny, a Nazi war criminal.

You need to add history regarding the ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem's Jewish population when Arabs from Jordan overran the city and stole Jewish homes, destroyed synagogues and cemeteries. — Unsigned, by: 70.167.118.54 / talk / contribs

They can't add every detail. Shall we add that some Zionists advocated expelling Palestinians from the region since the beginning, and later did so during the first Arab-Israeli War? Or the fact that Lehi, a Zionist militant organization, was openly admiring of Mussolini and wanted the Nazis to send all Jews to Palestine? The acts of terrorism it and other Zionist militants committed against their enemies? That other Jewish organizations at the time also wanted Jews sent to Palestine and not resettled in other places? Arabs and Jews have both committed ethnic cleansing. The amount of land seized from Palestinians on the West Bank continuing to this day could also be added. Would that be rational enough? Mcc1789 (talk) 04:31, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
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