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Shulman 3

I am sure we can find quotes and writings from all kinds of academics on all kinds of subjects, but we have to be able to differentiate what they say as a matter of political opinion, and what they say as a matter of professional findings. Shulman does not pretend that he has objectively studied the prevalence of a particular psychosis among people in the places he mentions; nor does he define what he means by "unfettered freedom to terrorize the local Palestinian population," and he is in any event clearly overstating the point. I suppose it is interesting that a personality like Shulman's might have such a strong point of view, but this is quickly going to become a quote farm if all sides started competing on what Israeli professors have to say on the matter of settlers. I know of one who would go on record as saying that these people serve an essential defensive function. The issue to me isn't whether Shulman's view is notable - it's that so many people's opinions are notable by the proposed standard, and we simply won't get anywhere if we're going to stick with it. --Leifern (talk) 23:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Then why don't you take exception to the many 'unnotable' judgements mustered in note 36/37 which, comprehensively violate undue weight and create such a conceptual fog of conflicting data, much of it dated, that no average reader can have the foggiest idea of what the argument is about, and that, by its nature, should properly be forked into a separate article on International Law Governing Occupied Territories? Shulman's right to comment on a thing he has studied deeply is denied on grounds that, if applied to the rest of the text, would mean a considerable amount of editing out for the same reasons. This is not consistency of editorial practice. No one will touch the other part because it looks, in its waffly vagaries, 'neutral' (though the intended drift hints that the settlement of occupied land, being legally unclear, means the question is subjective, and no judgement on abusive practices below holds weight in terms of law.)

If the issue is: 'that so many people's opinions are notable by the proposed standard', Shulman's book cannot be dismissed as one of 'so many people's opinions', since he is one of the few academics who has done fieldwork on the issue. There are not many books like it, and his opinions have more weight than those of 'so many people' who haven't worked closely for years with settlers and Palestinians. That argument doesn't hold water.

You write:'we have to be able to differentiate what they say as a matter of political opinion, and what they say as a matter of professional findings.'

This confuses synthetic judgement (as political opinion), with professional findings (presumably the notorious 'facts' Smith speaks of). The academic imagination does not work within a Gradgrindian framework. What Shulman wrote was his conclusion, his summary 'professional finding' which gives his synthetic interpretation of the evidence for settler behaviour in conflict with Palestinians in areas like the South Hebron hills. That he uses the word 'sociopath' does not mean he is making a 'political' judgement. That he lists killing, shooting and harassment as 'unfettered' practices is his finding. Perhaps to clarify, I should clip in a raw report, given in the most neutral language observers can muster, dealing with observed facts, recounting a relatively quiet few days in the area Shulman studies:-

AT-TUWANI UPDATE: January, 2008 SUMMARY: During this month, Israeli settlers in cooperation with the Israeli military often prevented Palestinian shepherds from grazing their flocks, particularly in a valley called Mshaha, located south of the illegal settlement outpost, Havat Maon (Hill 833).(Shulman's Chavat Maon) Israeli settlers consistently harassed the shepherds and called the army to chase the shepherds off the land. The Palestinian shepherds persisted in attempting to graze here because it is one of the few places with sufficient food for the flocks, due to the relative lack of rain this season.

The team continued its regular monitoring of the military escort of children to school in At-Tuwani. The team also observed additional construction in the illegal settlement outpost Havat Maon (Hill 833). VIDEO LINKS: CPT has posted video footage of one incident in which settlers fired on Palestinian shepherds (as Shulman notes), and another when Israeli soldiers 'mooned' shepherds and internationals.

Thursday, 3 January, 2008 After a short school day due to exams, the children were ready to go home about 11:00am, but the soldier escort had not yet arrived. A group of settlers with horses were gathered at the top of the hill where the children and escort must pass. The Palestinian children and the settlers yelled at each other. A few teenage settlers threw stones at the children. An adult settler stopped the teenagers and called them away.

Friday, 11 January 2008 While O’Neill and Gish accompanied a Palestinian shepherd in Mshaha valley, they observed a settler car on the hilltop, watching them and making phone calls. Shortly thereafter, the settlement security guard and an four Israeli soldiers arrived. O’Neill had a short discussion with them about whose land it was and whether the shepherd was allowed to be there. As they were leaving, the soldiers stopped on the ridge above and ‘mooned’ CPTers and the shepherd. (video link and Release: Israeli Soldiers Bare All South Hebron Hills, 19 January, 2008)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6505926642890909661&hl=en

Saturday 12 January 2008 A CPT delegation arrived in Tuwani. Gish and Ellison gave them a tour. The group ate a wonderful lunch prepared by the director of the local women’s cooperative. An afternoon talk from one of the key nonviolent organizers in the area was delayed because he was detained at a checkpoint for over three hours. He was able to speak with the group in the evening.

CPTers O’Neill and Heinrichs received a call from a Dove saying five settlers were near the Palestinian village of Mfakra. The CPTers followed them toward Mshaha where there were several Palestinian shepherds were grazing their flocks, accompanied by four Doves.

The settlers then went just out of sight, behind some trees at Havat Maon (Hill 833), and fired a series of six shots toward the shepherds. A Dove called the police, who arrived briefly but never got out of their jeep and left immediately. When the police were called a second time, they replied that they “had better things to do.” (video link and Release: Settlers Fire on Palestinian Shepherds in South Hebron Hills, 13 January, 2008)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5369538579313697940&hl=en

Sunday 13 January 2008 In the afternoon, Ellison, O’Neill, and Heinrichs observed settler men building at a house in the illegal outpost, Havat Maon (Hill 833). Five of these settlers carrying sticks or other objects came out toward where Palestinian shepherds were grazing, but then returned to the house.

Monday 14 January 2008 A Palestinian shepherd told the team that several olive trees nearby had been broken the night before. (Release: Olive trees destroyed in the night 14 January 2008)

Around 10:00 am, Doves accompanied Palestinian shepherds from Tuba grazing their flocks in Mshaha. The security guard from the settlement drove nearby with a video camera. About 11:30am, the Israeli army arrived and told the shepherds they couldn’t graze there. The shepherds moved down the valley, away from the illegal settlement outpost.

About 1:00pm, the army arrived again. Most of the shepherds fled down the valley, and returned home. One remained with his flock a short distance away. Hanson and two Doves joined him for tea on the hillside before he returned home.

Tuesday 15 January, 2008 While accompanying shepherds, Ellison and a Dove observed the settlement security guard looking out from the trees in the illegal outpost Havat Maon (Hill 833). Shortly thereafter, three soldiers arrived and walked down the hill and yelled at the shepherds. The shepherds took their flocks a short distance away, but remained in the area.

Ellison and the Dove spoke with the soldiers. The soldiers said that this was Israeli land and that Palestinians had to leave. Ellison and the Dove showed them a document from the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), which outlines court rulings governing Palestinian’s access to agricultural lands, and the Israeli military’s obligation to uphold these rights in the Occupied PalestinianTerritories. The soldiers claimed it was an old document and did not apply. They threatened to arrest the shepherds if they came back. The soldiers claimed that the shepherds had never been to Mshaha before, but only came over the last three days because they felt “brave” because of the presence of internationals. Ellison assured them that Palestinians came to this area every year to graze their flocks.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008 Ellison and a Dove responded to a call from a family who had been threatened by a settler while repairing their contaminated cistern (Release: Cistern contaminated in Humra Valley, 15 January 2008). They reported that earlier a settler vehicle coming from the direction of the nearby illegal settlement outpost Avigail passed by and told the family that he had called the police, who would be coming out to arrest them for working without a permit.

Thursday, January 17, 2008 O’Neill and Heinrichs accompanied Palestinian shepherds from about noon to 3:30pm. The shepherds were grazing near the site of a previously evacuated illegal settlement outpost. From there, the CPTers observed on-going construction at one of the houses in the current site of an illegal settlement outpost, Havat Maon (Hill 833).

Friday, January 18, 2008 In the morning, CPTers, Hanson and Heinrichs accompanied shepherds grazing in Mshaha Valley, near the illegal settlement outpost Havat Maon (Hill 833). They saw the settlement guard on the hilltop, watching the shepherds from his truck. A few minutes later, an army jeep arrived and shepherds fled. Three of the soldiers got out of the jeep and chased the shepherds on foot, but never caught up to them. The shepherds returned home with their flocks.

About 2:30pm, CPTers Hanson and Heinrichs went to accompany a family plowing in Tuwani. Shortly after, an Israeli army jeep arrived and told the family to stop plowing. The settlement guard also arrived, and spoke with the commander.

The Palestinian landowner spoke with the soldiers in Hebrew. Later, he conveyed some of the conversation to CPTers. The commander admitted that he was new to the area. When the landowner mentioned that often new commanders in this area take their orders from the settler security and asked if this commander had done that, the commander emphatically said, “No”. The commander then said that this is ‘his’ land – not the settlers, not the Palestinian’s, but ‘HIS!’ The Palestinian landowner corrected him, saying, in fact this was his land, and he wanted to appeal to the law to decide the matter. Eventually, the commander agreed to call the District Coordinating Officer (DCO) of the Israeli Civil Administration, who decides such matters in the area. Ultimately, the DCO ruled that the family could continue plowing.

Sunday, 20 January 2008 While CPTers O’Neill and Heinrichs accompanied Palestinian shepherds in Mshaha valley, the Israeli army came and asked for identification from O’Neill and one of the Palestinian shepherds. After checking the IDs, the soldiers said that the shepherds could remain where they were so long as they did not go close to the trees (the site of the illegal settlement outpost Havat Maon, Hill 833).

Later, a group of settlers walked up the road to a hilltop nearby and looked down on the shepherds. One of the group was carrying an automatic weapon. The soldiers went to speak with the settlers, who then made their way back to the illegal outpost. The soldiers then positioned their jeep between the outpost and the shepherds in the valley.

Around 1:00pm, the soldiers approached a second time and reversed their original decision, saying that the shepherds had to leave the area. CPTer O’Neill asked them to check again with the District Coordinating Officer (DCO), since earlier they had said shepherds could remain in that area. The soldiers came back and reverted to the original decision, saying that the shepherds were fine where they were. At this point the soldiers left, and the shepherds grazed freely in Mshaha valley.

About 2:00pm, soldiers returned a third time and reversed their decision again, saying the shepherds had to take their sheep and go home. This time they told both the shepherds and CPTers that they were not allowed to ever come back to that area.'

This raw data, collected over several years, when summarized in a 'professional' academic report by a single scholar, aiming at an interpretative analysis of settler-indigenous conflict, will lead to conclusions of the kind 'settlers have unfettered freedom' to harass, shoot, menace, local folk to drive them off land to which they have title, in order to occupy it. They do so because they are raised to believe they have a divine right to take land from the children of Amalek, whose descendents according to Maimonides halakha (598. Wipe out the descendants of Amalek Deut. 25:19) are to be killed as a pious duty in this variety of messianic ideology. They are unfettered because the army assists them frequently, while punishing local folk who protest. It is the sign of a sociopath that one can expropriate land from families who have legal title to it, brandish weapons at them, spit on them, if they resist, and fire shots at them (sometimes ending in deaths which are rarely investigated or brought before the courts), etc. That is not a 'political' judgement, it is one scholarly observer's synthetic judgement, based on his fieldwork in an area where these events occur on a daily basis. Nishidani (talk) 11:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Secondly, 'objectively studied psychosis' is not Shulman's brief ('psychosis' is technically quite distinct from 'sociopathy'). The literature on conflict of this kind (Mannoni's classic study of 1950 onwards, re settler-indigenous conflict and its psychology) is brimful with words like 'sociopath'. Israeli settlement has sociopathic elements, as does the resistance it engenders. It is part of the jargon in the academic literature on the sociology of ghettoized sub-cultures. We have one quote using the word 'unfettered', and you take exception to it on the ground that Shulamn doesn't define it? Have you read the book. Does every synthetic generralisation cited from academic works in Wiki require that each judgemental term within it be glossed?

Shulman is one academic who has studied the artea intensively, and drawn the 'sociopath' interpretation for a certain group (the aggressive minority in the Hebron hills). This is quite in keeping with one school in the sociological of violent movements. If you read Lustick's book, you will find that he would agree thoroughly with Shulman's overall approach, but disagrees on the 'diagnosis'. Lustick says what puzzles him is how these particular settlers can at times engage in the most terroristic of activities while remaining to all appearances 'normal people'. For him, a comparativist on settler movements, the problem is the way 'ideology' can twist otherwise normal people to see their exceptionally violent mode of life as a moral one. Idem with the pieds noirs and the Boers. Margalit analyses the phenomenon in terms of the sociology of generational conflict. Etc etc.Nishidani (talk) 08:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Facts, facts, facts. Re your last post in the previous sub-section, there are many facts here. there are two interpretations of each of those facts. Our job here as an enclyopedia is to show that there is more than one interpretation of those facts.

I note that you are very good at repeating the word 'facts' but, whereas I have provided several sources of a few dozen, by citation or reference to authors who may readily be consulted on settler society, your only reply is to talk about your job on the encyclopedia. Could you begin to provide me with other interpretations than those of Shulman, as you insist (rightly) exist. I know of a good many, and have offered indications as to where to find them. How do you reply. More chat about facts and encyclopedias. Encyclopedias, dear Smith, are composed by reading up on sources and gathering relevant data, then writing that material up, not by musing in an armchair about facts and what a wonderful thing it is to participate in writing an encyclopedia. Please do not invite me again to be rude. But your remarks are becoming a refrain void of substance. I know you mean well, if I may condescend, but you have offered absolutely nothing over the past days of substance in rergard to 'other facts' 'other interpretations'. If you have them, provide them, as I will provide mine.Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I have no further facts to add, nor I will try to seek any. I am seeking only to keep out any slanted material. You are free to add any factual material. please do not add quotes which are overtly slanted towards one side or the other.

If you want a fact, here's one: each side thihnks it is right, and cite provcations by the other side which justify its own conduct. therefore, WP:NPOV remains relevant here.

Indeed it does and it reads:

'As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. The neutral point of view policy is often misunderstood. The acronym NPOV does not mean "no points of view". The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy by simply labeling it "POV". The neutral point of view is a point of view that is neutral, that is neither sympathetic nor in opposition to its subject: it neither endorses nor discourages viewpoints. Debates within topics are described, represented and characterized, writing sympathetically about each side; but they are not engaged in. Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular.

You are confusing, as is User:Leifern, by the incantatory use of the appeal to facts, what WP:NPOV requires, that debates, and particularly academic analyses, with specific viewpoints, be an integral part of the article. I can give you several such viewpoints. You dislike them, because as yet you have no counter viewpoints. This is your problem, not mine. Shulman's viewpoint is as stated for one part of the settler phenomenon. As a matter of curiosity before I proceed, I presume you have read Margalit's review. Margalit provides his own 'slant' on second-generation settlers. Is anything in this 'slant' acceptable to you, or must Margalit be excluded because he too, like all writers of academic books, has a 'slant'?

By the way, I am not seeking to mount any defense here of my approach to Wikipedia. I never claimed to be the paragon of all virtues needed. If my approach jhas some flaws as you say, other editors will see your points here and raise their own points as well. that is how Wikipedia functions. Thus within that context, I am free to raise my concerns in various forms. This is being done openly, and anyone is free to raise their own concerns also about the manner of discussion here. As you well know, that's kind of the whole idea here. :-) thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:55, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

YOu approach is flawed by the fact that you show no interest in the topics you edit. As any author knows, when his publisher has his draft edited by someone who, and it is frequent, has no particular knowledge of the subject, all hell breaks loose on the galleys. And, permit me, your presumption to edit material you have no knowledge of, simply on the grounds that, presumably, you have a nose for 'slants', is well, remarkable for its nescient hauteur. We are all free to say what we like, but no one listens if you don't go to the trouble to think about the subject at hand, preferably by familiarizing yourself with it.

Re your posts above, I am not trying to argue for or against the settlers. I am trying to keep this article encyclopedic and balanced. All your posts are well-written, but they cannot address the whole issues themselves. this is a collaborative encyclopedia. Voluminous posts from any one editor, though helpful, are not as decisive as a valid consensus fairly arrived at among several editors. I do appreciate your thoughts and input. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 14:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm all for collaboration, but good faith editing implies respect for hard work in others, a respect that should be paid in kind by making an effort to read up on the subject. No encyclopedia in the history of literature I am familiar with has been composed by people who are not familiar with the substance of the articles they have delegated themselves to compose.

I am not trying to argue for or agains the settlers, either. There are historically three groups, and one the haredi, do not fit the pattern which Shulman discerns in the South Hebron Hills. Shulman, Lustick, Sprinzak, Margalit etc.etc. are not listed here, not noted, so far, and they have all written on settler communities. This page is on settlements, and I am simply asking that if this aspires to be of encyclopedic quality, the sociological, historical, religious, political history of settlements, which has a very substantial literature on it, be covered, and not just hinted at with a few thumbnail gestures towards Amnesty reports. These articles are remarkable for what they exclude. There is almost nothing of academic substance in them, and that is why they fail the encyclopedia test. Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

These incidents you cite are perfectly acceptable here, provided they come from a reliable source. I'm not defending the things that are alleged here, but I would not characterize them as "most terroristic of activities," and anyone who would use such terms has a very loose grasp on morality. That is reserved for blowing up schoolbuses with kids and sending rockets against civilian targets. It's fine that Shulman is outraged - I might feel the same way in his place - but his outrage is not the stuff that facts are made of. --Leifern (talk) 15:36, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Shulman 4

I gave that material not for quoting (and it is RS) but to clarify the actual realworld 'factual' flow and reality that Shulman studied, which none of the objectors seem to be even vaguely aware of.

I'm still waiting for someone to show why a general statement which conforms to known facts (those available in Peter Bouckaert's book: incidents of purposeful harassment, killing, terrorizing are listed in detail there) and defines those of the settlers who do this as 'sociopaths' is not acceptable because it is not factual, not factual because the word 'sociopath' is not a fact, but an expression of 'outrage' instead of being a standard sociological term for 'deviant' behaviour, and why one word in a synthetic judgement by a field researcher is adduced as proof we are not dealing with 'facts.' To repeat, most wiki article in this area are not factual, they deal with reports from a variety of POV sources, academic or otherwise, giving angles, with some 'factual'evidence which, totalled, are supposed to produce an NPOV article. The 'fact' of the matter is that, so far, I personally discern a reluctance to accept a normal piece of evidence because it doesn't make some settlers look good, just as the wiki article on Arafat's pocketing $1 billion of funds doesn't make the PLO look good. So what, if it is well-sourced, one puts it in.Nishidani (talk) 16:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

One convention that has come into play when it comes to this topic - for better or worse, and probably mostly for better - is that historical events are best reflected in ways that focus on very specific aspects of them. For example, who did what, when, and to whom, and under what circumstances; followed by reactions and characterizations - again, by whom and under what circumstances. FWLIW, I am not inclined to make any apologies for people who harrass their neighbors, or threaten them, or heaven forbid kill them. Those who do those things should be investigated, charged, put on trial, and if guilty punished according to the relevant laws. But the information is that much more credible if it is stated as facts and sourced appropriately. --Leifern (talk) 16:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Well I'm all for a NPOV article. What worries me is that, ready with a mass of material, I find the first tidbit blocked, squashed, quashed and contested out of what strikes me as 'fear' for images and implications. It is not for us to apologize, feel sorry for, or protest at what occurs in the world (though those sentiments are natural and necessary in private life). But equally, we should not be squeamish in writing down what occurs, where and when. There are literrally thousands of articles on this aspect of the settler-Palestinian dyad, and now we have a good resourceful book on it written by a superbly accomplished scholar who has dedicated 4 years of his time to working out there in the field. He is opposed to Palestinian terrorism, as he is opposed to Jewish terrorism. What is the reaction? Shulman called a specific group of settlers 'sociopaths'. Another Israeli scholar agreed. Stop it! That is 'slanted' against settlers! No, the proposed edit simply gives us the fact' that a competent authority regards some settler behaviour as sociopathic. Lustick, whom I would also introduce, says it is normal, and caused by ideological indoctrination of a fundamentalist colour; Ehud Sprinzak says of Arabs who fight, kill or riot against settlers this: '‘The West Bank Arabs, who are the targeted community of the fundamentalist violence of Gush Emunim and Kach, have never bothered to understand the settlers’ point of view, their motivation, or the difference between the two movements (haredi settlements vs extremist settlements pd). The main issue for them was, and remains, the occupation.' i.e. Haredi and many other populous groups of settlers are quite different from those with roots in the far-west fundamentalism of Shulman's target group. Arabs in the territories treat all settlers, irrespective of their pietistic quietism, as though they were like the other, more violent kinds, and that this is a mistake. Margalit, drawing on a point standard in the earlier literature, i.e. that Gush Emunim originally had a much broader attitude to Palestinians, and did not think of antagonizing them. It turned 'bad' after them mid-70s, and became highly conflictual, yet still had pious elders who reined in extremists of the Kach/Kahane type. Many in the second generation however has lost all trace of this religious piety, and act more like cowboys, 'barbaric' and 'cynical' than settlers of the Puritan foundations. I could go on, but if Shulman can't get a word in, because of one judgemental word, I imagine that the extensive sociology of variegated movements in settler societies won't be tolerated either. That is why no one in the know reads Wiki. It seems preoccupied with shunting mutually exclusive newspaper article POVs across the tightrope of political correctness. Impressive, but not very factual, and hardly encyclopedic.Nishidani (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Assigning clinical terms to people based on non-clinical motives is not NPOV. Citing factual events is. the article about the $1 billion does not assign labels to those involved, or express any sense of moral outrage; it simply reports the factual events. that is what i am seeking. the settlers do not see themselves as sociaopaths; they would say they are responding to provocations from Palestinians,as would any party to any conflict. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Could I prevail on you, please, to at least read a few lines in a dictionary. 'Sociopathic' has many uses, one clinical, and one in the technical literature on minority ghettoized groups. Shulman's viewpoint, again does not have to be NPOV: it is a viewpoint, among others in an article which must be NPOV. This is child's talk wikiwise. I note you are now presuming to know what 'settlers' (ad they are often at loggerheads and not a unified group) would think. I don't.Nishidani (talk) 19:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. ok, it is NOT the clinical term which i object to. It is simply the fact that we should not be making value judgments of ANY sort here. We should not call them sociopaths, we should not call them idiots, we should not call them heroes. that is quite simply my entire position on this.

Also, to reply to your note above, I am not questioning any of your facts on this. My position is simply, again, that i see no place for any value judgments here. that is what I feel is meant by WP:NPOV. thanks.

To answer your other point, I agree with you. Wikipedia should certainly include a range of viewpoints on any political issue. the only place I disagree is that I feel there is no reason to quote value judgments of any side. what we should quote is their concerns, their facts, and their beliefs. and we certainly should not quote one side's opinion with no factual content when the object is to describe a specific situation.

By the way, Shulman's quote uses the word "sociopathic" as an epithet, not as a term. So the specific passage does not seem like a learned academic opinion worth quoting here. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 19:18, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Okay I am still sober, but the effects of that claret are starting to show (my keyboard orthography improves, sure sign of tipsiness). Of course we should not be be making value-judgements. We are here to edit in material that contains 'value judgements' without taking sides either way. Indeed my whole argument here is that technical your rejections are based on 'value-judgements' as editors, which take Shulman, or any other academic authority I might name, to task because in a passage he exercises his right to make a critical judgement, which however remains an analytical judgement whose use or 'veracity' it is for other scholars in the field (Margalit apoproves) to improve reject or correct. You do not appear to understand this simple distinction, confusing my POV, your own, with the right of a competent reliable source to have a POV. All interpretative work, in what the French call the human sciences, has a 'slant', 'interpretation', 'authorial perspective' or POV. Had it not, we would read the yearbook on statistical data fr every country to be informed according to NPOV criteria as you understand them. To write in any language is, by the choice of terms, to display a point of view. We are not calling anyone 'sociopaths', 'diots' or 'terrorists'. We are simply registering what the quality literature calls individuals, groups, or even societies. That I have to explain this to you is distressing. Wiki article-building is chock full of referenced material. I challenge you to indicate to me an article on Israeli-Palestinian affairs which is composed of 'value-neutral articles. So if 'i see no place for any value judgments here', is the emphasis here. Why is this particular article to be, uniquely, shorn of value judgements? I note that all 'facts' are not given as facts but 'according to', which means they are not facts, but points of view, as is Shulman's. Hiccup, g'nightNishidani (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, your posts are tending towards being counter-productive and unhelpful. Saying we should not include value judgments is an extremely simple and truthful statement. you say "we are simply registering what the quality literature calls individuals, groups, or even societies." No, we do not. Nishidani, you are wrong. I do not seek to prolong this discussion with you. please stop addressing me directly. talk to the crowd. stop making comments on me, my sensibilities, my habits, or anything else.

to answer your opoint, there are numerous israeli commentators who call the Palestinian Authority a despotic dictatorship. there are numerous Palestinian commentators who simply call Israel a law-breaking tyrant. there are many commentators who call America tyrannical and corrupt. do we simply put those opinions as they are into articles? no, of course not. thank you. those are my views. I would appreciate it if your next post(s) made absolutely no reference to me individually, whether my knowledgability, my compliance with Wikipedia standards or anything else. I do find your posts rather articulate, and therefore I hope you will hear my requests as to the outlines of future discussion. I think I am being reasonable here. (perhaps that is the claret talking, not you. :-) )thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 21:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

'do we simply put those opinions as they are into articles? no, of course not. thank you.'

Well then hurry over to Abu Nidal, there's a good chap, and edit out this comment:-

'By all accounts, the ANO reflected Abu Nidal's paranoid and possibly psychopathic personality, more of a mercenary group willing to act on behalf of diverse interests, than one guided by political principle.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Nidal#The_ANO

Just one of may instances. I have a long list.Nishidani (talk) 09:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, no imput, but I still remain unconvinced of this particular reading of the NPOV rule as what is the norm in Wikipedia.

You write:'I feel there is no reason to quote value judgments of any side. what we should quote is their concerns, their facts, and their beliefs. and we certainly should not quote one side's opinion with no factual content when the object is to describe a specific situation.'

I recall:

'In 1995 Werner Cohn wrote of Shahak:

Without question, he is the world's most conspicuous Jewish antisemite... Like the Nazis before him, Shahak specialized in defaming the Talmud. In fact, he has made it his life's work to popularize the anti-Talmud ruminations of the 18th century German antisemite, Johann Eisenmenger."[35] Israel Shahak [1]

I.e. Werner Cohn, an academic (sociologist), makes a personal judgement on another person, one which happens to be a 'value judgement'. This is quoted in Wikipedia's article on an Israeli scholar. It happens to be false, but represents a scholar's opinion, his belief if you like, but 'beliefs' contain value-judgements by their very nature.

David Shulman, an academic made a value judgement about a group he has done fieldwork on for 4 years. He is a critic, but also researcher, of Jewish fundamentalist groups in the Southern Hebron Hills. To cite Cohn, a sociologist,'s value-judgement on Shahak and his several books on fundamentalism is valid. To cite Shulhan on a settler group, though he has done 4 years fieldwork on them, is invalid, because he expresses a 'value-judgement'. Jayjg supports the Cohn quote, and erases the Shulman quote. I see this as smearing or erasing the remarks of anyone who comments critically on Jewish religious fundamentalists in the West Bank. What is your take on this Steve, Sm8900 ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nishidani (talk • contribs) 19:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Yes, the Shahak article is as good a place as any to take the measure of Jay's seriousness about the interpretation of WP:RS he's putting forth here. Just the other day he added a quote to that article from FrontPageMagazine about how Shahak "was a disturbed mind who made a career out of recycling Nazi propaganda about Jews and Judaism."

According to Jay, you need a PhD in psychology in order to say something general about society's "violent, sociopathic elements," or something specific about "destructive individuals" in the Israeli settlement enterprise – even if the source is a highly acclaimed book put out by University of Chicago Press. But to diagnose a celebrated writer and critic of Israel as having a "disturbed mind," all you need to be is some gasbag interviewed by David Horowitz's online tabloid. "The material seems well and reliably enough sourced," Jay assures us, reaching for another cheese doodle.

And for the claim that Shahak is guilty of "fabricating incidents, 'blaming the victim,' distorting the normative meaning of Jewish texts, and misrepresenting Jewish belief and law," Jay offers us this self-published online essay by someone called "Andrew E. Mathis," who apparently has a PhD, which we know because he calls himself "Andrew E. Mathis, PhD" everywhere he appears on the internet – which is to say mostly in usenet threads [2], letters sections of local newspapers and blogs, and once on Urban Dictionary, where he defined "k0nsl" as "an immense douchebag," adding a helpful example: "I was trying to drive to work, and some k0nsl cut me off." Extraordinary claims require extraordinary sources, as Jay is fond of telling us, and this Mathis k0nsl sure seems to be one.

And bear in mind, this only represents crap from the last week or so.--G-Dett (talk) 21:41, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Thanks for your replies, Nishidani, and also G-Dett. Nishidani especially, I appreciate all of your helpful remarks, as well as your thoughts and insight. I would like to take some time to think about the last two comments you wrote, before I offer a reply. You raise some good points. Until i think up a useful reply, I will be willing to step aside to allow others to comment. thanks for all your helpful input. see you. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

G-Dett. Well this order of contradiction is widespread: I have quite a collection. To correct it all and create an intertextual uniformity of neutrality would takie a lifetime given the hghly motivated obstructionism driving some (not Steve, Sm8900) here. I read the Mattis article over a year ago, and it raised, if I recall correctly, two points on Shahak's interpretation of Rabbinical texts, picking on a few hermeneutic cruces out of several hundred pages of Shahak's work, in order then to judge that Shahak was unreliable generally. I do not know of any scholar, except perhaps A.E. Housman, whosed scholarly integrity might survive this kind of trick. The general operative rule seems to be.Pilpul on anything regarding Israel's image to keep it absolutely neat, Raffety's rules when it comes to critics or Palestinian viewpoints. Regards Nishidani (talk) 11:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Steve, Sm8900 No hurry at all. Nishidani (talk) 11:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime, while waiting,Steve, Sm8900. Do you find this example [3] by a sinologist, Simon Leys, with no qualifications in psychiatry, making a psychological judgement on the founder of the Ming Dynasty (Zhu Yuanzhang )odd? Of course, I put it there myself but would be much surprised if other China hands take exception to it.Nishidani (talk) 18:02, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

It has been pretty conclusively shown that material published by University presses is not uniformly "peer-reviewed". University presses tend to be high-quality publishers, but that does not imply "peer-review". The book itself is described in the New York Times book review as a "diary"; it contains Shulman's impressions, feelings, and thoughts over a period of time. It is not an actual academic study of the settlers, and Shulman's psychological analysis of them is his view as an activist, not as an expert. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Jay, no matter how much OR-spin you keep putting on the passage, it still offers no "psychological analysis" of the settlers. Nor did the material you deleted present Shulman's book as an "academic study," so let's clear away that strawman while we're at it. It was however published by a very prestigious university press, and has received rave reviews. Please see WP:Gaming the system, example 7.--G-Dett (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure his personal feelings were expressed well. As for OR, strawmen, and WP:Gaming the system, yes, please stop. And add [WP:TALK]] to that list; use article Talk: pages to discuss article content, not other editors. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Jay, don't dodge. The passage offers no "psychological analysis" of the settlers; that was your invention (OR). The material you deleted did not present Shulman's book as an "academic study"; that was your invention (strawman). The book was published by a very prestigious university press, and has received rave reviews; don't raise the bar artificially (GAME). Example 7 of WP:Gaming the system covers your "Attempt[s] to force an untoward interpretation of policy, or impose one's own novel view of "standards to apply" rather than those of the community," and reads:

Example related to WP:RS: "Source X is not sufficiently credible for this article on music - the author doesn't have any peer reviewed papers in a music journal!" More generally, this example shows removal or marginalizing of notable viewpoints (breach of WP:NPOV) on the grounds that the cited sources do not meet the editor's named standard [even though they do meet the communal standard]. Wikipedia:Reliable sources anticipates that reliable sources with differing levels of reliability and provenance may coexist, and that reliable verifiable sources of reference material will often be available from different types of source, not just one or two preferred by a particular editor. Not every notable view on music is documented in a music journal; not every notable view on scientific topics is documented in science journals. Reliability is determined neutrally, using WP:RS and evidence of the community's view. The primary purpose of WP:RS is to clarify and guide communal views on the reliability of different sources, not to support unilateral demands for an unreasonably narrow personal definition of "reliable" as a means to exclude appropriate sources that document notable opposing views.

--G-Dett (talk) 05:54, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Quoting irrelevant guidelines isn't helpful, please stop. Here's relevant policy: Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article and should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:Gaming the system #7 is absolutely relevant, as you know; you're trying to define as "unreliable" a widely hailed book on the settlements published by University of Chicago Press on the grounds that you find the author's resume insufficient; you're engaging, that is, in "removal or marginalizing of notable viewpoints (breach of WP:NPOV) on the grounds that the cited sources do not meet the editor's named standard [even though they do meet the communal standard]." That there are "destructive individuals" in the Israeli settlement enterprise is not an "extraordinary claim," but rather a commonplace. (That Israel Shahak had a "disturbed mind" is an extraordinary claim, as well as a "psychological analysis"; we've seen your sourcing standards for that.)--G-Dett (talk) 06:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:Gaming the system is only relevant to your edits, as is abuse of WP:V; you're trying to pass off a diary written by a professor of Dravidian languages as a reliable source for the claim that "violent, sociopathic elements... have found a haven, complete with ideological legitimation, within the settlement enterprise" where they have "unfettered freedom to terrorize the local Palestinian population: to attack, shoot, injure, sometimes kill". exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Jay, you're hand-waving. Shulman's expertise in Dravidian languages is absolutely irrelevant, which is why I've never mentioned it and why you have mentioned it eight or nine times. To try to remove or marginalize "notable viewpoints (breach of WP:NPOV) on the grounds that the cited sources do not meet the editor's named standard [even though they do meet the communal standard]," as you are doing with a major, highly acclaimed university-press publication on the settlements, is a violation of WP:Gaming the system, specifically example #7, as anyone with eyes can see. And anyone with eyes can also see how you've just doctored the quote from Shulman; shame.--G-Dett (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Shulman's expertise in Dravidian languages is absolutely relevant because that is where his expertise actually lies, not in Israeli settlers. His diary of his experiences may be well written and interesting, but it is not a reliable source in this context, and continually claiming is it is a violation of WP:V, as anyone with eyes can see. And the fact that I included ellipses in the shortened quotation makes it clear that I was shortening, not "doctoring"; shame. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

You took the subject of one sentence ("sociopathic elements") and substituted it for the subject of another sentence ("violent individuals") in order to misrepresent the sentence and trick readers of this page. According to excellent sources – including the University of Chicago Press, the New York Review of Books, and Slate Magazine – Shulman does indeed have relevant expertise in the settlements. You're arguing with those sources by putting forth your own critique of his resumé, complete with the bogus premise that expertise in one area precludes expertise in another; hence the deliberate and ongoing misdirection in your banging on about "Dravidian languages." And as has been demonstrated several times, you're violating WP:GAME (ex.7) by artificially and idiosyncratically raising the bar of reliability in this one instance, in order to rule out the use of a source with whom you have ideological disagreements. We know that Shulman doesn't offer a "psychological analysis," which was your OR invention and another attempt to trick editors; and even if he had, we know that you don't actually believe WP:RS or WP:V requires a source's expertise in psychology to make such judgments, because you edit-warred on Israel Shahak to include a FrontPageMagazine hack's views that Shahak has an "unbalanced mind." So when you invoke that criteria here as if you actually believed in it, we know you're lying. Stop trolling here, Jay, and you'll stand a better chance of being taken seriously. Oh, and though I understand the impulse to emulate better writers than yourself, I'd appreciate it if you stopped lifting from me; if you have a meaningful response, write it in your own words.--G-Dett (talk) 21:47, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Where was it "conclusively shown" that material by university presses is not necessarily peer-reviewed?--G-Dett (talk) 02:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Books of poetry are not peer-reviewed. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:36, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

If this is intended as a general assertion, I promise you it's nonsense. If you have specific knowledge of how the University of Chicago Press functions, do share. But why, may I ask, are you talking about poetry? The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books publish fiction and poetry; does this put into question the reliability of their non-fiction contents?--G-Dett (talk) 06:01, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Books of poetry are peer-reviewed? How about detective novels? University of Chicago Press publishes both. Anyway, if you insist that Shulman's book was peer-reviewed, please share your source; otherwise we'll consign that claim to the dustbin of uncited assertions, and move on. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:06, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, fiction and poetry are very often "peer-reviewed" (a fact which incidentally occasions a lot of cynicism about cliques, clubs, and coteries); you're out of your depth here.--G-Dett (talk) 06:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Amusing assertion. Now if you insist that Shulman's book was peer-reviewed, please share your source; otherwise we'll also consign that claim to the dustbin of uncited assertions, and move on. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:30, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Jay, stay within your circle of expertise, and you won't find yourself in embarrassments like this.--G-Dett (talk) 06:52, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

G-Dett, if you insist that Shulman's book was peer-reviewed, please share your source; otherwise we'll also consign that claim to the dustbin of uncited assertions, and move on. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

More 'amusing assertions' .

'Dark Hope is a merciless eye-and-heart witness report on the corruption of the Zionist idea in the occupied West Bank. David Shulman, one of Israel’s most prominent scholars, documents passionately his and a small group of his activist friends’ resistance against overwhelming forces of fanaticism and indifference. This is an invaluable testimony to the still-living conscience which brings light to our darkness.' Yaron Ezrahi, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,Gersten Family Professor of Political Science.Department of Political Science Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

One of the most fascinating and moving accounts of Israeli-Palestinian attempts to help, indeed to save, human beings suffering under the burden of occupation and terror. Anyone who is pained and troubled by what is happening in the Holy Land should read this human document, which indeed offers a certain dark hope.” A. B. Yehoshua

User:Jayjg is simply 'troubled and pained' that the writer in question can be cited to disturb his equanimity, which he confuses with the NPOV guidelines of Wikipedia.Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't currently have a response. i'll step aside, to allow others to weigh in here. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 16:49, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I forgot you were here, Steve, and feel bad whenever I participate in a shitstorm like this in the presence of one of the best-faith Wikipedians I know. I wish Jay would argue his points like a colleague, rather than some crypto-gnomic Cretan oracle. I wish he'd say, "hold on! This quote's pretty inflammatory. Let's keep in mind, while well-received and put out by a prestigious press, this book is written by a non-specialist. Let's find a passage that imparts more light than heat, and then we let's talk about how to balance it." Instead, he selects a phrase ("sociopathic elements"), isolates it from its context (a general statement about how every society has its "violent, sociopathic elements"), substitutes it for a different phrase ("destructive individuals") in a different context (a specific sentence about the ideological legitimation of said destructive individuals in parts of the settler enterprise), elevates it into a "psychological analysis," then tells us this psychological analysis, which is a figment of his OR-magination, requires specialist training, which he then finds lacking when scrutinizing Shulman's resumé, and then makes a personal judgment about this lack, which he claims overrides every objective indication of RS-ness (prestigious press, rave reviews from esteemed sources) – all so that he can say not only does he not accept the passage, but decrees the source by definition illegitimate (Dravidian languages, blah blah blah). He cites WP:V for this triple-somersault of sophistry, but WP:GAME, ex.7 is the apparent Muse and relevant guideline. This is overreaching, this is patronizing, and – to be very frank – this is bullshit. All it succeeds in doing is getting everyone's back up, including mine. Let's collaborate as colleagues, instead of sending another damn article to the mediation queue.--G-Dett (talk) 22:23, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to collaborate as colleagues, then stop using every talk page comment to discuss editors, rather than edits. Your reasons for not including the quote are as good as any. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:12, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

well thanks, for your kind comments about me. in truth, I wasn;'t really here too consistently, as i was just a bit busy anyway with other things, and some errands in real life. anyway, i haven't actually read this whole thing too much, so I'll try to take a look. I'm glad if you're found my work here and there to be useful. thanks very much. I'll look around a bit; if I can add anything useful here, I'll try to do so. thanks. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:43, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I do0 have to say, it does sound like Shulman is a valid source, based on the peer reviews noted right above. --Steve, Sm8900 (talk) 22:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Further Reading

Just taking a quick look at the Further Reading, the majority of it seems to be incredibly pro-israel, in contrast to a few sources from the BBC and the like. Perhaps if people have some other, more neutral sources we could list them here to add and perhaps organise the further reading section better. I'm going to start looking - cheers. Colourinthemeaning (talk) 10:05, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Colony demographics

A section on the ethnic, country of origin and religious breakdown of the colonies would be interesting, especially compared to Israel's. For example, do the settlements attract many of Israel's Druze/Christian/Muslim minorities? Anyone able to cast any light?

Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 12:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

There was a case presented to the Israeli High Court a while ago in which a Muslim Israeli sued for the right to live in a settlement. If I remember correctly, he won the case but was still not given a house in the territories. Cheers, pedrito - talk - 10.07.2008 13:19

I'm going to take it as a given that Israeli Muslim residents are something of a rarity in the colonies, then. Who did the person sue? Do you know are there many Christian or Druze colonists?

Lapsed Pacifist (talk) 11:33, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Hello, I've for the moment being no scholarly sources, but just to talk from my own experience, there are two kinds of 'population profiles' in the settlements: first, there are those who go there for ideological reasons to defend, with their presence, the right of the Jewish people to live in these territories; most of them are more or less religious, so the shabbat rules for example would apply publicly (nobody would drive a car on shabbat except for patrolling), you find some wealthy people among them. And then there are quite a lot of people who don't care the least bit about ideology but just live there because house rental is much more cheaper there then inside Israel. Some told me it can even be for free: you are charged, you don't pay, nobody will evict you, you just stay. Normally the smaller the settlement and the farer inside the territories, the more ideological hardliners you'd find; in the bigger ones like Ariel, the range of people is just very broad. In Kiryat Arba (Hebron), I've been told, there is even quite a lot of recently immigrated poor families which have been offered (free or very cheap) housing there by the government. So I wouldn't be too surprised if you found some Druze or Christians in some of the bigger settlements, but given the very small percentage of these groups in the overall Israeli population, it should be anecdotical (except for the fact that part of the recently immigrated Russian Jews might be not very Jewish in their origin or habits... but that's another story). As for 'Israeli Arabs', they could of course try to live there (and their low income status would made it reasonable) but at least in the smaller settlements they would for sure be very much frowned upon and probably not offered housing; I didn't spot any. The lower-class groups there (nurses, cleaners...) are usually Yemeni or Ethiopian jews, the construction or industry workers are typically Palestinians from the nearby villages, who get permits to enter there (and do so often despite their political opposition to the settlement, as there is no other income source for them). Interesting subject to add to this wikipedia entry? Let's look for some sources... Ilyacadiz (talk) 11:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

questionable phrase "destroyed within hours"

Judging by the citation given, the phrase "but these were destroyed within hours by Palestinians" describing the greenhouses mentioned in the "Dismantlement of settlements" section does not seem to be warranted. The cited article only says that a number of greenhouses were damaged (not structurally) and had important items stolen from them. I would suggest the alternate wording "but some of these were damaged by Palestinian looters". Or perhaps, "many" were "seriously" damaged by looters, but certainly not "destroyed". Somebody please fix this. 75.67.156.76 (talk) 15:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

ICJ advisory opinion

I'm a little puzzled as to why this sentence –

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), however, has asserted that all UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding

– has been changed to the following:

In 1971, however, a majority of the then International Court of Justice (ICJ) members asserted in the non-binding Namibia advisory opinion that all UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding.

The summary indicated that the edit "added accuracy," which I suppose it does by specifying in what case this was decided and in what year. But it also adds a redundancy, since an advisory opinion is by definition non-binding. The tautological addition of "non-binding" strikes me as a well-poisoning little smirk, directed at the Court's finding that SC resolutions are binding (a non-binding opinion about what is binding? Hah!). The edit also adds weasel language. "A majority of ICJ members asserted"? What, in a sort of straw poll? How does it work, do each of the ICJ judges (since when are they called "members"?) just sort of stand up and assert, and someone records and tallies their assertions? Come on, guys, this is a 50-page advisory opinion speaking officially for the International Court of Justice. "The ICJ asserted" was fine. "The ICJ found" would be even better, since idiomatically courts usually 'find' rather than 'assert'.--G-Dett (talk) 03:29, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I changed this sentence:

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), however, has asserted that all UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding in its 1971 Namibia non-binding advisory opinion.

to this one:

In 1971, however, a majority of the then International Court of Justice (ICJ) members asserted in the non-binding Namibia advisory opinion that all UN Security Council resolutions are legally binding.

The justices of the court at the time were not unanimous in their decisions, and the records reflect that. Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice pointed out in his dissenting opinion: "If, under the relevant chapter or article of the Charter, the decision is not binding, Article [69/70] 25 cannot make it so. If the effect of that Article were automatically to make al decisions of the Security Council binding, then the words 'in accordance with the present Charter' would be quite superfluous". The wording reflects the fact that there were dissenting views, even among the then ICJ justices. Jayjg ^(talk) 05:32, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I have a problem with this. Focusing on the dissenting opinion, and giving that opinion preeminence over that of the majority, is a classic example of undue weight. Was the dissent even commented on in any third-party reliable sources? *** Crotalus *** 16:33, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Except that we don't "focus on the dissenting opinion", nor do we give "that opinion preeminence over that of the majority". And of course the dissent was commented on in third-party reliable sources - see, for example, footnote 40 in the article. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Other

A number of international bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and many legal scholars have characterized the settlements as a violation of international law, but Israel, the Anti-Defamation League, and other legal scholars disagree with this assessment.

‘Other' here is ambiguous, and that is why I challenged it. Grammatically, it can refer either to ‘many legal scholars’ or it can refer to the preceding two entities immediately before- Israel and the Anti-Defamation League - as if they too constituted the first two in a series of ‘legal scholars'. Clearly written texts of encyclopedic quality should avoid any such ambiguity. Nishidani (talk) 13:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The parallel wording of the clauses makes it unambiguous, but I'll fix the alleged ambiguity nonetheless. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

That's better, but it's still questionable. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 07:05, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Israel has always been told the same thing as we were, viz, building settlements would be illegal. In 2007 Theodor Meron, then Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser, told the rest of us that he'd "secretly warned the government of Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 that it would be illegal to build Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories" and, on the 40th anniversary of that War told everyone "that he still believes that he was right". PR^talk 16:59, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop soapboxing. If there is a specific change you are proposing, let's hear it. Canadian Monkey (talk) 19:06, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I propose that any edit insinuating that the settlements might be legal is FRINGE and EXTREME and disruptive.

Checking links 57, 58, 59 and 60, one is a "Guide to activists", which can hardly be an RS, then Australia Israel Review and the OSCN don't comment on the legality of the settlements atall, and the CBC mentions "legal scholars" and Eugene Rostow in 1991, but can hardly be read as giving credence for this belief. Let's edit the article to policy, taking out this kind of nonsense. PR^talk 20:47, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

the CBC is clearly a reliable source, and if it finds it notable enough to report that a prominent scholar of of international law such as Rostow argues that settlements are not, in fact, illegal, that sort of does away with your claim that this is a a fringe position. As a side note, you seem to be conflating "fringe" and "extreme", so please have a look at these pages. A report on Rostow's position in CBC is, of course, neither.Canadian Monkey (talk) 21:27, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

I find it difficult to credit you'd waste your own time and ours defending one reference (17 years old and naming just one legal source for a claim that there are many such) while ignoring the fact that the other three are false and have no place in the article. Are you here to improve articles or damage them?

And your defense of the "settlements are legal" position makes no sense - the CBC goes out of its way to lead us to believe that Rostow is wrong with "despite the fact that the resolution emphasizes "the inadmissability of the acquisition of territory by war.""

I'll grant you that EXTREME refers to sources, not positions, but FRINGE certainly applies "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study. Examples include ... novel re-interpretations of history and so forth."

Not only do we know what legal advice Israel received in 1967 (settlements illegal), but they've admitted its illegal, only objecting that it was not a war-crime on the same level as mass killings. "Israel Minister of Foreign Affairs" conceded the point in 1998: "The following are Israel's primary issues of concern [ie with the rules of the ICC]: The inclusion of settlement activity as a "war crime" is a cynical attempt to abuse the Court for political ends. The implication that the transfer of civilian population to occupied territories can be classified as a crime equal in gravity to attacks on civilian population centres or mass murder is preposterous and has no basis in international law." PR^talk 12:08, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Samaria

(a)After coming to power the Likud changed the government’s terminology for settlement in the occupied territories, substituting the term “hitnachalut” (evoking Biblical injunctions and promises to “inherit” the land through settlement) for “hityashvut,” an emotionally neutral term. The terms “occupied territory” or “West Bank” were forbidden in news reports. Television and radio journalists were banned from initiating interviews with Arabs who recognized the PLO as their representative'. Ian Lustick, 'The Riddle of Nationalism:The Dialectic of Religion and Nationalism in the Middle East', Logos, Vol.1, No-3, Summer 2002 pp.18-44 pp.38-9

(b) Samaria, like Judea, is an Israeli term with strong biblical religious connotations associated with the rise of the Likud party and extremist groups colonizing the West Bank. The West Bank is the standard (marginal 'fringe' exceptions do exist) term to designate the area.

(c) The Biblical Samaria and modern Samaria are confused geographical terms, with no precise demarcation in international law.

(d) If Samaria and Judea were allowed, then the corresponding Palestinian/Arabic designations would have to also be used to maintain NPOV.

(e) This encyclopedia's commitment to NPOV means concretely that ethnic-specific terms for contested land must yield ground to international naming conventions.

For this reason, Samaria and Judea are not acceptable and should be reverted, whenever they are plunked it. There was no debate on Samaria that would qualify as a consensus, only vote stacking by several interested parties (Israelis or pro-Israelis) against one editor who happened to be sticking to wiki policy. Nishidani (talk) 11:35, 15 November 2008 (UTC)

Your original research is fascinating, but hundreds of sources use the term Samaria to refer to this region. For example:

• (1)"Its intention was to establish a Jewish settlement in the heart of Samaria, the northern bulge of the West Bank, densely populated by Arabs." Ian Lustick For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Council on Foreign Relations, 1988, p. 45.
• (2)"Few in number until the late 1970s, the young Gush Emunim settlements in Samaria, the Etzion bloc, and Kiryat Arba attracted the most idealistic and dynamic fundamentalist activists." Ian Lustick For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, Council on Foreign Relations, 1988, p. 54.

Comment. (1), (2) Cherrypicking. As shown, Lustick is citing settler language and explicitly documented that this is annexationalist language. These two quotes are thus immaterial.Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. Lustick nowhere explains that he is "citing settler language", nor does he state that the term "Samaria" is "annexationalist language", nor does he include the word in quotations of any sort. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, in fact he does. You may have seen this quote before:

"For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area between the Green Line and the Jordan River not as the West Bank but as Judea and Samaria." [4]

As about citing settler language, it's pretty obvious to even a casual reader that Lustick does, so obvious that he doesn't feel a need to spell it out. He's not using the term "Samaria" anywhere in the book except when describing the settler movement's ideals or ambitions. It's anything but a clear, unambiguous case of a scholar using the term, and we have wasted lots of time arguing over this isolated instance, so I suggest you find better, unequivocal examples instead of defending your misrepresentation of Lustick's book to the death. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (3)"Rabin intended the settlement to be temporary and to relocate them later within the confines of the Allon plan, not in the heart of Samaria. The settlers, however, refused to move." Roger Friedland, Richard D. Hecht. To Rule Jerusalem", Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 170.
• (4)"The row houses of Ofra, a Jewish suburb to the north of Jerusalem, are planted in deep red soil at the foot of Ba'al Hatzor, the highest mountain in Samaria." Roger Friedland, Richard D. Hecht. To Rule Jerusalem", Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 213.

Comment.3 and 4. The two authors throughout use the ‘West Bank’ as their preferred designation of the area, and identify other names for it with specific groups, the IDF or religious settlers. Note their record of an interview with a rabbi from the extremist settlement at Kiryat Arab, who echoes the sentiments of Rabbi Kook.

‘Rabbi Waldman, his dark moustached mouth waiting in a white field, bristled. We had referred to the lands where ancient Israel once stood as the West Bank. “No one ever called the country of Jordan the East Bank,” he reprimanded us. “In the same manner, you cannot call this the West Bank if you want to relate to the essence of the area.”

Naming is rarely innocent; choice of place names carries meanings, forwards claims. To those who would trade land for peace, this is the “West Bank.” The military authorities who administer these lands, for whom they are mainly a troublesome job, call them “the territories“. To the religious nationalist settlers they are Judea and Samaria (Yehudah and Shomron in Hebrew), the historical copre of the ancient Jewish nation.’ Roger Friedland, Richard D. Hecht. To Rule Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, 1996, p. 152.

The authors use "West Bank" more frequently, but they also used this term. Their interview with the rabbi is about the phrase "Judea and Samaria", this issue is about the term "Samaria". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Jayjg, could you kindly provide a reliable source for your oft-repeated claim that "Judea and Samaria" ≠ "Judea" and "Samaria"? The authors clearly state that J+S is Israeli terminology, who exactly says that doesn't apply to the terms in isolation? MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (5)"In August 2005, reversing his longstanding position on championing settlement of the Land of Israel, Sharon evacuated all of the Jewish settlements in Gaza (some 9,000 people living in twenty-one communities) and four small settlements in the northern part of Samaria (West Bank)." Alfred J. Kolatch. Inside Judaism: The Concepts, Customs, and Celebrations of the Jewish People, Jonathan David Company, 2006, p. 270.

Comment. Yes, but three pages earlier he writes ‘That notwithstanding, the building of Jewish communities in the West Bank – or Judea and Samaria, as Jews refer to it – commenced.’p.268. (b) The four communities were withdrawn from what the Palestinians, under an agreement with Israel, call the Jenin Governorate. Why then the insistence that a Palestinian administrative district be called by a name favoured by the Occupying power, i.e. by neighbouring Israel?Nishidani (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Again you are referring to the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria", not the term "Samaria". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, a reliable source for your oft-repeated claim that "Judea and Samaria" ≠ "Judea" and "Samaria" would be helpful. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (6)"On 18 September 1978, one day after the signing of the Accord, 700 Gush Emunim members established an unauthorized settlement in Samaria..." Lilly Weisbrod. Israeli Identity: In Search of a Successor to the Pioneer, Tsabar and Settler, Routledge, 2002, p. 112.

CommentIt is Weissbrod, by the way. She habitually glosses ‘Judea and Samaria’ with 'The West Bank' p.88 even in the pages Jayjg cites pp.112-13, and the text here uses the Gush Emunim designation, precisely those associated with the establishment of Samaria as the term. The West Bank is used as a gloss throughout these books, precisely because everyone in the reading world globally knows what West Bank means, as opposed to Samaria or Judea.Nishidani (talk) 11:38, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Weissbrod is referring to "Samaria", not the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria", and she does not include the term in quotes. She uses the term as a simple geographic designator, and no-where indicates she is quoting anyone. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment 2 Lily Weissbrod is an Israeli [5], which makes this source unusable as evidence of outside-Israel use of the toponym. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by a British publisher. The United Kingdom is "outside-Israel". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term. The nationality of the publisher is immaterial and your "discrimination" objection is distasteful and willfully misleading. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (7) "LAST STAND IN SAMARIA", Kevin Peraino, Newsweek, August 15, 2005.

Comment.Samaria is used in the title, and once in the text, which otherwise prefers West Bank. The title is followed by the gloss ‘Disengaging from Gaza will be hard. The West Bank could be harder.’ The topic links are to ‘The West Bank’. The one statement using the term quotes a fanatic:

'One right-wing parliamentarian, Arieh Eldad, has warned that Sa-Nur could become the "Stalingrad of Samaria".'Nishidani (talk) 11:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

And yet, the article uses the term Samaria. It uses both, just as this article (Israeli settlement) uses both. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

One is a direct quote by an Israeli, the other is an allusion to the historical past (read page 2 and you will understand). Newsweek does not use the term "Samaria" at all, except when explaining what settlers call the West Bank. This has been pointed out to you numerous times before, you still insist on misrepresenting this source and many others. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (8)SAMARIA, Martin Gilbert, The Routledge Atlas of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, Routledge, 2005, p. 134 (and other maps showing Samaria).

CommentThis is the first piece of evidence worthy of attention. Distinguished historian. He uses the Mandatory terminology throughout, irrespective of changes in political and national control of these areas. To be discussed, especially since in this he is ioncoherent for he uses these designations while most, if not all, of his maps follow the international usage 'West Bank' which Israeli law abolished, and Israeli usage does not accept.Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

He uses the designation "Samaria" on several maps. Period. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

• (9)"The relative success in establishing official settlement in Kfar Etzion and unofficial settlement in Kiryat Arba prompted groups of Israelis to attempt settlement in the major town in Samaria — Nablus.", Allan Gerson. Israel, the West Bank and International Law, Routledge, 1978, p. 139.

Comment.You fail to note that before he uses this term Gerson notes,

‘On February 29, the popular term, ‘West Bank’, was by official fiat, abandoned in favour of ‘Judea and Samaria’ – the historical and geographical designation of the region and one not without nationalist and religious overtones of association with the Jewish people. p.111 Gerson through refers to the West Bank as the default term, since where the term is used he follows the language of people who use it like Moshe Dayan, and exponents of Gush Enumin. Gerson therefore supports the point made by Lustick and several others, that these terms are specifically nationalist terms, with a strong setler POV.

As before, you bring arguments based on the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria", not the designator "Samaria", which Gerson uses naturally, with no indication that he is "following the language of people who use it". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, a reliable source for your oft-repeated claim that "Judea and Samaria" ≠ "Judea" and "Samaria" would be helpful. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (10)"In Samaria the voting percentage increased from 75% in the Jordanian period to 83.9%..." Allan Gerson. Israel, the West Bank and International Law, Routledge, 1978, p. 185.

The problem is the use of the term relates to the Jordanian period of rule, when in Israel the area was still officially called the West Bank, and the modern admninistrative divisions now in place did not exist. Nishidani (talk) 12:59, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The book was published in 1978, long after Jordanian rule ended. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

This quote is attributed to Davar, an Israeli newspaper. Not usable as evidence of outside-Israel use. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (11)"Nevertheless, Haganah commanders recognized that the size of the Iraqi force and its location in northern Samaria made it a dangerous threat." Kenneth M. Pollack. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p. 153.
• (12)"The prospects for a successful defense also improved during this period with the arrival of a large Iraqi expeditionary force in northern Samaria, enabling Glubb to withdraw..." Kenneth M. Pollack. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p. 279.
• (13)"...wanted to concentrate their forces along shorter defensive lines in the mountainous terrain of central Samaria." Kenneth M. Pollack. Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991, University of Nebraska Press, 2004, p. 296. (many other similar examples in this book).

Comment. Again, Jayjg, you've been googling without reading. These three quotes come from a history of the 1948 war, when Mandatory language was employed. Our discussion is on contemporary conventioned Western usage to describe the West Bank, not on historical British or Jewish usage. All three are irrelevant, and like most of the above, to be elided as immaterial to the point.Nishidani (talk) 13:08, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, Nishidani, the quotes come from a book published in 2004, almost 60 years after the 1948 war. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Clearly historical usage, in reference to the British Mandatory administration district. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (14) "The first actual step taken by the group was to settle in Elon Moreh in Samaria." Santosh C. Saha, Thomas K. Carr. Religious Fundamentalism in Developing Countries, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 73.

CommentAgain useless. The whole relevant chapter uses the 'West Bank' as the default term, and the specific description refers to Gush Emunim's language, in accordance with its fundamentalist concepts of Eretz Israel. Nishidani (talk) 13:11, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, an invalid objection. The source uses both terms, and nowhere indicates that it is "referring to Gush Emunim's language" - no quotation markes, inverted commas, etc. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Implied — but may obviously be read as if this was the authors' own term. The authors, as Nishidani notes, use "West Bank" as the default term however. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (15)"Northern Samaria is one of the harsest setting in the territories... In addition there have been many convoys bringing food, medical supplies, and other necessities to blockaded villages in Samaria and on the western "seam line". David Dean Shulman. Dark Hope: Working for Peace in Israel and Palestine, University of Chicago Press, 2007, p. 102.

Comment. Impressive, until you actually read the whole page and find out that Shulman specifies that he is talking about the ‘northern West Bank’ p.102 Nishidani (talk) 13:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

...and clearly uses both descriptors. Just like this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment 2 David Dean Shulman is also an Israeli [6], which makes this source unusable as evidence of outside-Israel use of the toponym. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by an American university press. The United States is "outside-Israel". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term. The nationality of the publisher is immaterial and your "discrimination" objection is distasteful and willfully misleading. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (16)"Arafat lived in the casbah of old Nablus in Samaria and held his meetings in small Nablus cafes or in the New Generation Library." John Laffin. Fedayeen; the Arab-Israeli Dilemma, Free Press, 1973, p. 26.

Comment. Again immaterial since the reference is to the pre-1967 period, where Mandatory language was still used on occasion in foreign accounts, and not to contemporary usage.

Again, invalid objection, since the book was published in 1973, well after 1967, and decades after 1948, the Mandatory period. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Clearly historical usage, in reference to the British Mandatory administration district. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (17) "(Though the northern parts of Samaria were occupied by the Iraqi army, as a Hashemite sister state, Iraq allowed Abdullah to exercise his political influence over the territories its armies controlled)." Joseph Nevo. King Hussein and the Evolution of Jordan's Perception of a Political Settlement with Israel, 1967-1988, Sussex Academic Press, 2006, p. 12.

Comment. Immaterial. The reference is to 1948, when Mandatory language prevailed.Nishidani (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Invalid objection. The book was published in 2006, 60 years after the Mandatory period. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Clearly historical usage, and thus irrelevant to the extent of the modern toponym's usage domain. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (18)"Kiryat Arba (near Hebron) and Elon Moree (in Samaria) were, until 1977, the only settlements founded in the West Bank outside the lines of the Allon Plan." Joseph Nevo. King Hussein and the Evolution of Jordan's Perception of a Political Settlement with Israel, 1967-1988, Sussex Academic Press, 2006, p. 95.

Comment. The reference is again to the West Bank, which is not Israel's preferred usage, but Western usage, and Samaria as a part of it, which is Israel's preferred usage. The contradiction subsists.

The source uses both terms, as does this article, per WP:NPOV. No contradiction exists. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

See (19). MeteorMaker (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (19) "In 1981, at the end of Begin's first term as Prime Minister, there were about 80 settlements in the West Bank, some in the densely-populated Arab areas in Samaria and elsewhere." Joseph Nevo. King Hussein and the Evolution of Jordan's Perception of a Political Settlement with Israel, 1967-1988, Sussex Academic Press, 2006, p. 96.

Comment. The West Bank against was not usage acceptable to Begin, whereas Samaria and Judea were. The areas populated were overwhelmingly Arab areas, and the Samaria here refers to areas which have perfectly legitimate Arab designations, i.e. governorates in the northern West Bank. Nishidani (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Your objection doesn't even parse into English. The source uses both "West Bank" and "Samaria", as does this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment 2 Joseph Nevo is also an Israeli [7], which makes cites (17), (18) and (19) unusable as evidence of outside-Israel use of the toponym. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by a British publisher. The United Kingdom is "outside-Israel". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term. The nationality of the publisher is immaterial and your "discrimination" objection is distasteful and willfully misleading. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (20)"The first settlement had been built in Samaria, and settlers believed that they had begun the task of preventing territorial compromise in the West Bank." David Weisburd. Jewish Settler Violence, Penn State Press, 1985, p. 30.
• (21)"While the government had acted quickly to forcibly uproot previous settlement attempts, it did not move against the settlers in Samaria through December 7." David Weisburd. Jewish Settler Violence, Penn State Press, 1985, p. 32.

Comment(20/21) But Weisburd at the outset of his book states

All but one of these outposts were established in the “Occupied West Bank”, as it is generally called in the United States, though the settlers who live in these areas prefer to use the term “Judea and Samaria” when speaking of the region. The latter term emphasizes the connection of their settlements to the ancient Land of Israel’ p.9

He does not use the term in his Map of the area p.10 on page 28 he specifies Samarian hills as being in the north of the West BankNishidani (talk) 14:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The issue at hand is the term "Samaria", not the phrase (and Israeli administrative district) "Judea and Samaria". The source uses both "Samaria" and "West Bank", as does this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Comment 2 David Weisburd is also an Israeli [8], which makes cites (20) and (21) unusable as evidence of outside-Israel use of the toponym. MeteorMaker (talk) 12:56, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on ethnic or national origin, and the book was published by an American university press. The United States is "outside-Israel". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, Jayjg: an Israeli source is poor proof that non-Israelis use the term. The nationality of the publisher is immaterial and your "discrimination" objection is distasteful and willfully misleading. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (22)"Success in restoring some order was due to the energy and skill of the district governors — in Hebron a Palestinian, Nairn Tucan, in Samaria another, the active Ahmed Khalil, and in Jerusalem Abdullah Tell." Ann Dearden. Jordan: history and special problems, R. Hale, 1958, p. 85.

Comment. Again you are citing a ref. to the 1940s, when Mandatory usage prevailed, and not a source bearing on contemporary usage. Immaterial, since no one is contesting Samaria was used at that period. Nishidani (talk) 14:10, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

The book was published in 1958, ten years after the Mandatory period ended. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Clearly historical usage, in reference to the British Mandatory administration district. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (23)"...as a reaction to the October War, and the character and impact of the illegal settlement attempts in Samaria from late 1974 onward." William W. Harris. Taking Root: Israeli Settlement in the West Bank, the Golan, and Gaza-Sinai, 1967-1980, Research Studies Press, 1980, p. 135.
• (24) "As regards physical activity Gush Emunim had carried all before it for two years and had planted the presence in Samaria which would be extremely difficult to curb, let alone uproot." William W. Harris. Taking Root: Israeli Settlement in the West Bank, the Golan, and Gaza-Sinai, 1967-1980, Research Studies Press, 1980, p. 157.

Comment: Can't be evaluated due to restricted content. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (25) "In Samaria, the number of women employed in sewing has risen from 100 in 1967 to just over 3000 in 1972." Vivian A. Bull. The West Bank--Is it Viable?, Lexington Books, 1975, p. 123.

Comment: Legit, if weak. "The West Bank" is still the majority term. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:52, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (26) "A third sector was opened up in the north, where Gen. Elazar sent the armoured brigades of Ram and Bar-Kochva from Ugda Peled to take Nablus and Jenin in Samaria." John Laffin, Mike Chappell. The Israeli Army in the Middle East Wars 1948-73, Osprey Publishing, 1982, p. 19.

Comment: Clearly historical usage. MeteorMaker (talk) 11:31, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (27) "For example, in the case of the settlement-city of Ariel - the largest settlement in Samaria, coincidentally named after Ariel Sharon - the design was stretched into a long, thin form." Stephen Graham. Cities, War, and Terrorism: Towards an Urban Geopolitics, Blackwell Publishing, 2004, p. 181.

Comment: "West Bank" is again used consistently in the book, while "Samaria" occurs exactly two times [9]. One is in the bibliography (a World Zionist Org document), the other is Jayjg's quote. It seems unlikely "Samaria" is part of the author's own vocabulary, since he does not use it elsewhere [10][11]. I would say this lone instance of Stephen Graham using the term is akin to an instance of the term "das Vaterland" in a book about modern German white supremacy groups and their ideology or ambitions — a term that is in frequent use within the group, but hardly used as an acceptable alternative to Germany by anybody else. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Your original research is fascinating. However, he nowhere indicates he is using the terminology of any other groups; rather the source uses both terms, as does this article. Also, comparing Jewish groups to neo-Nazis is gratuitous and distasteful. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The source does not use the term Samaria at all, except this lone instance.MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (28) "Likud planners designated Ariel to become the largest Jewish town in Samaria, with as many as one hundred thousand residents by the year 2010." Robert I. Friedman. Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West Bank Settlement Movement, Random House, 1992, p. 72.

Comment: Another source that directly contradicts Jayjg's claims [12]. Page xxiv: "[...] Judea and Samaria are part of the Land of Israel, said Drobles [cochairman of the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization], using the Biblical names for the West Bank". Page xxxiv: "Gush Emunim's rabbis proclaimed that settling [...] Judea and Samaria, otherwise known as the West Bank was part of the divine process [...]". Restricted content on Google Books makes the rest of the instances of "Samaria" difficult to evaluate, though the one Jayg quotes appears to be another case of a neutral author using the toponym when describing the settler movement's ambitions. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, no contradiction whatsoever, since we are discussing the use of the term "Samaria", not the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria". Also, there is no indication whatsoever that the author is "using the toponym when describing the settler movement's ambitions". Continual dismissal of sources based on self-serving theories about the authors' motivations are summarily dismissed. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Jay, can you explain more fully your theory that when the author refers to "the Biblical names for the West Bank," what he really has in mind is "an Israeli administrative district"?--G-Dett (talk) 13:16, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

• (29) "... but late on June 6 he broke through to capture Nablus, the key to road communications in Samaria... Jordanian defences in Samaria fell apart." John Pimlott. The Middle East Conflicts: From 1945 to the Present, Orbis, 1983, p. 68.

Comment: Clearly another pre-67 reference to the area. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Published in 1983, long after the Six-Day War, and decades after the mandatory period. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Clearly historical usage, and thus irrelevant. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (30) "On the other hand, we visited the planned city of Ariel on the top of a mountain in Samaria, one of Israel's West Bank settlements." Peter Laarman. Getting on Message: Challenging the Christian Right from the Heart of the Gospel, Beacon Press, 2006, p. 46.

Comment: The sentence actually reads as if "Samaria" were a settlement and not Ariel, which might be an indication of the level of research the author did before chatting with the settlers. I will give this one the benefit of the doubt though. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

• (31) "Yael Meivar was shot by terrorists near the settlement of Alei Zahav in Samaria." Anthony H. Cordesman, Jennifer Moravitz. The Israeli-Palestinian War: Escalating to Nowhere, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, p. 26.

Comment: Cordesman and Moravitz use the term "the West Bank" 107 times in the book, "Samaria" 12 [13]. Seven are direct quotes by Israelis, three (including Jayjg's quote) refer to the Israel-declared administrative districts, two could not be determined due to restricted content.

The source uses both "West Bank" and "Samaria", as does this article. There is no indication whatsoever, that the author is referring to "Israel-declared administrative districts", since there is no "Israel-declared administrative district" called "Samaria". Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Even if your interpretation is correct, it's 107-3 (with two indeterminable) against "Samaria" being a majority term. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (32) "Marking Israeli Arbor Day at a Jewish settlement in Samaria on Feb. 3, Shamir said...", Andrew C. Kimmens. The Palestinian Problem, H.W. Wilson, 1989, p. 211.

Comment: With the preceding sentence "The Likud bloc led by Shamir continues to support Israeli sovereignty over all of the occupied territories", the reference to "Samaria" becomes ambiguous — is it Likud/Shamir's terminology or the authors' own? Google Books only lets us see 2 of the 7 instances of "Samaria" [14]. One is a quote by an Israeli rabbi, the other looks like an official Israeli statement, though it's difficult to say with any certainty. The preferred toponym seems to be "the West Bank" with 30 instances however. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The only "ambiguity" is the usual self-servingly invented one. The author uses the term "Samaria" naturally, nowhere indicating he is quoting or using the language of anyone else. The source uses both "West Bank" and "Samaria", as does this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Cannot be evaluated due to restricted content, but maybe somebody who owns the book can clarify if the other five instances are also Israeli quotes. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (33) "Carter concluded that the unresolved issues included... the future of the Palestinians in Samaria, Judea, and Gaza..." Herbert Druks. The Uncertain Alliance: The U.S. and Israel from Kennedy to the Peace Process, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001, p. 175.

Comment: Herbert Druks [15] uses "Samaria" consistently and avoids the term "the West Bank" entirely, so, finally, some bona fide anecdotal evidence for Jayjg's hypothesis.

Just one source among many disproving your hypothesis. I have no hypothesis, I'm just disproving yours. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

One instance is not proof of widespread acceptance, which you need in order to prove your hypothesis. Synthesized anecdotal evidence doesn't cut it. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:33, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (34) "Jewish settlements in Samaria in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would be under Israeli sovereignty." H. Paul Jeffers. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Jerusalem, Alpha Books, 2004, p. 212.

Comment: Jeffers is simply paraphrasing Ehud Barak, a fact that would have been evident to Jayjg had he bothered to read the preceding paragraph: "Barak arrived with his position on the public record:" [16]. There are four instances of "Samaria" in the book, two of the ancient Samaria, two from Barak quotes. The term "the West Bank", in comparison, occurs 30 times.MeteorMaker (talk) 20:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

The author "paraphrases" Barak using the term "Samaria". The source uses both "West Bank" and "Samaria", as does this article. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Still an Ehud Barak quote. No other (non-historical) uses of Samaria here, so, again, no cigar.MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

• (35) "Instead the government based its view on the map previously introduced by Clinton Bailey which envisaged three self-governing Palestinian enclaves, with an Israeli corridor in Samaria." Dan Cohn-Sherbok, Dawoud Sudqi El Alami. The Palestine-Israeli Conflict: A Beginner's Guide, Oneworld Publications, 2001, p. 86.

Comment: Sherbok-Cohn and El Alami use "West Bank" consistently in the book, except in three places [17], one of which (again) acknowledges the fact this list was intended to refute: "The Israelis insisted on referring to the West Bank as Judea and Samaria". Of the other two, one is a paraphrased statement by Menachem Begin (where the term is again glossed with "The West Bank"), the second (the one Jayjg chose) appears to be another paraphrased statement, this time by Benjamin Netanyahu. MeteorMaker (talk) 20:45, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is about the term "Samaria", not the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria". The authors use both "West Bank" and "Samaria", as does this article. The notion that these are "paraphrases" is another example of that self-serving theory regarding the motivations of the authors. The authors, however, simply use the term. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

The authors do not use "Samaria" except in quotes or paraphrased quotes by Israeli PMs, and one explanation that it is Israel-specific terminology, the opposite of what you intended the cite to show. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:02, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There are hundreds more sources. Also, the term "Samaria" is an English, Western one, not an "Israeli" one. Israelis speak Hebrew. Please stop trying to force your political agenda into Wikipedia. Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a copy and paste job from Talk:Samaria, and has already been refuted there. The first seven quotes (from four sources) have conclusively been shown to be misrepresentations of the sources (plus one case (Lilly Weisbrod) of using an Israeli source as evidence of outside-Israel use of the term "Samaria"[18]. Why you bring them up again is difficult to understand. All of these sources use "West Bank" consistently, and "Samaria" only when describing settlers and their ideology or ambitions (in the Newsweek case, in a poetic title alluding to Bible-age Jewish history). Four of these four sources actually confirm the opposite position of yours:

*For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area not as the West Bank, but as Judea and Samaria. [19]

*To the religious nationalist settlers, [the territories] are Judea and Samaria, the historical core of the ancient Jewish nation.[20]

*[...]the building of Jewish communities in the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria as Jews refer it, commenced. [21]

*And it stretches to the fanatical Jewish chauvinists who want to expel the Arabs from the land they call Judea and Samaria.'[22]'

I don't have time to check out the rest of your cites now, but I'm pretty convinced they are of similar quality as evidence for your position. And please review WP:SYNTH. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:32, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Utter nonsense. The sources are all non-Israelis who use the term to mean the Samaria, no more no less. Not one has been "disproven" in any way, and your references to the quite different phrase "Judea and Samaria" are irrelevant to that fact. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Of the five I've checked [23], one (Lilly Weisbrod) is an Israeli, the rest all say — explicitly — that "Samaria" is an Israeli term, and use "West Bank" and/or "Palestine" consistently, except in a few cases when writing from the Israeli perspective. Not the strongest evidence in support of your hypothesis I can imagine. Yes, they all use the term "Samaria" when discussing settlers and Zionists — but so do I, and I definitely wouldn't appreciate a Jayjg parading the book version of these talk pages as proof that I endorse the term. Why don't you write to Ian Lustick and ask him if he agrees with you that "Samaria" is a widespread term outside Israel? Because what you need is a reliable source for your claim, not synthesized theories based on the flimsiest anecdotal evidence.MeteorMaker (talk) 23:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Can you quote them explicitly stating that the term "Samaria" - not the phrase "Judea and Samaria" - is an "Israeli term"? So far you have not been able to. And then can you provide the sources that explicitly say that the "toponym" is "not widely understood outside of Israel", as you have claimed? Because I have dozens of reliable English speaking sources printed outside Israel for non-Israeli audiences that use the term without any difficulty. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Since the suggested phrase "Samaria is [...] a term used for the mountainous northern part of what is today the West Bank. Israeli annexationists also use the combined term Judea and Samaria to refer to the modern West Bank" doesn't say anything particular about the usage of the toponym "Samaria" in isolation, I don't quite see the relevance of that objection. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but as has been explained to you, it was also the West Bank yesterday, so the pleonasm "what is today" is not required, except for polemic purposes. Also, attempt to tie the term "Samaria" to settler use of the phrase "Judea and Samaria" is WP:NOR and (and polemical). Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

How is it "polemical" to state that settlers use the combined term "Judea and Samaria" to refer to the modern West Bank? Either every non-Israeli news source, reference work (including Wikipedia), and government org is "polemical" and you are perfectly neutral, or your position has a few issues with reality. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Interesting, I have a 'political agenda'. Jayjg, the paladin of Israeli POVing on I/P pages, does not, even when he is patently endeavouring to wikilawyer his way round the standard English terminology dee rigueur for these articles.

(A)For the record, for every I quote, reflecting Israeli or Jewish POVs, on Samaria, there are hundreds referring to that area as the northern West Bank. No one denies that in Jewish/Israeli usage Samaria is the preferred term. What Meteormaker, myself and any one else interested in NPOV maintain is that Samaria is POV, and West Bank NPOV. Your list merely shows the Israeli/Jewish POV.

(B)Even in the list, little stands up to examination, since many of the books cited, if examined use West Bank as consistently, if not often more consistently, than Samaria. It's called cherry-picking.

(C as illustration of B)You cite the Newsweek article

Had you actually read it, you would have noted that 'Samaria' is the title, and only used to gloss the following quote:

'One right-wing parliamentarian, Arieh Eldad, has warned that Sa-Nur could become the "Stalingrad of Samaria", '

And that the Newsweek links classify this under West Bank.

(D) The other wiki language sites confirm the point

(i)La Samarie est le nom de la capitale d'une région historique de Palestine qui était située au nord de la région de Judée, dans ce qui représente aujourd'hui le tiers septentrional de la Cisjordanie, dont la ville principale est Naplouse.

(ii)Samarien bezeichnet im Wesentlichen den nördlichen Teil des heutigen Westjordanlands (Gebiet von Nablus). . . .Israel bezeichnet das Gebiet als Bezirk Judäa und Samarien, wobei dies von der UNO dem Westjordanland zugeordnet wird.

(iii)Samaria, .. è la regione centrale della biblica terra d'Israele. La maggior parte della regione si trova nel nord della Cisgiordania. Alcuni, specialmente coloro che appoggiano la legittimità della creazione dello Stato di Israele e l'annessione di territori conquistati in seguito ad un conflitto armato, preferiscono il termine Giudea e Samaria, a volte viene usato anche il nome inglese (West Bank, "Sponda occidentale", equivalente all'arabo الضفة الغربي, "al-Diffa al-gharbī").Nishidani (talk) 10:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

(E)And please don’t try to fudge evidence by cherrypicking international experts like Anthony Cordesman or Ian Lustick to throw my way in support of your blatant political agenda. If you do I will throw them back at you. I.e.

(1)'In February 2004, Ariel Sharon declared his plans to unilaterally withdraw from the Gaza Strip and some small settlements in the northern West Bank. This proposal became a reality in August 2005 when within one week the 25 settlements slated for evacuation, 21 from the Gaza Strip (all the Gaza Strip settlements) and 4 from the West Bank (the area around Jenin), were evacuated’ Anthony Cordesman, Arab-Israeli Military Forces in an Era of Asymmetric Wars', Praeger Security International/Greenwood Press, m2006 p.85

(2) ‘According to Israeli sources, the security barrier system in the West Bank area began to be effective even in its early stages, when many key sections were still incomplete. From April to December 2002, there were 17 suicide attacks directed from the northern part of the West Bank, referred to by some as Samaria.’ Anthony H. Cordesman, Arab-Israeli Military Forces in an Era of Asymmetric Wars. Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington, D.C.) Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006 p.90 Nishidani (talk) 10:15, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

(3) 'Even as Gush Emunim seeks ways to institutionalize itself and its program, it already has created powerful myths for contemporary Israeli society. These myths, and the attitudes and policies they encourage, will mold Middle Eastern affairs for decades. Israelis now entering the army were born after the 1967 war. For them, the West Bank is Judaea and Samaria.' Ian S. Lustick, ‘Israel's Dangerous Fundamentalists’, in Foreign Policy, No. 68 Fall 1987 pp. 118-139 p.120

(4)‘Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for the general areas south and north of Jerusalem. (respectively) Historically, they include substantial portions of pre-1967 Israel, but not the Jordan Valley or the Benyamina district (both within the West Bank). For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationalist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area between the green line and the Jordan River not as the West Bank, but as Judea and Samaria.’ Ian S.Lustick, For the Land and the Lord, 1988 p.205 n.4

Lustick has argued specifically that Samaria is a loaded extremist term indicating 'annexationalist' claims (2) that it is geographically imprecise being a vague biblical term. Meteormaker raised this several times, and none of you has an answer to the point.Nishidani (talk) 10:40, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Analysing changes in Israeli school textbooks, Podeh identifies the military conquest of 1967 as marking a significant change in Israeli usage. I.e. the use of 'Samaria' is an Israeli designation introduced in the aftermath of a military takeover of the West Bank. This again confirms what Lustick has written.

'The narrative in the old textbooks was influenced by the exhilarating impact of Israel’s victory. The term “Six Day War,” with its boast of the magnitude of the victory and its accentuation of the extent of the Arab defeat, quickly became the Israeli appellation for the war. Similarly, the term West Bank was superceded by the terms Judea and Samaria, which emphasize the historical link of these areas to Jewish national history.’ Elie Podeh, Arab-Israeli Conflict in Israeli History Textbooks,1948-2000, Information Age Publishing 2000, p.113 Nishidani (talk) 13:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The following sources all clarify that Samaria is an Israeli political term used to substitute terms like 'West Bank', 'Occupied territories' used all over the world. They fuirther clarify that it is associated especially with the rise of the right-wing settler-pushing Likud party, was addopted by that party to substitute the term 'West Bank' used earlier in Israel and throughout the rest of the world where it is still the standard term, and therefore is a political-partisan term whose use in Wikipedia would naturally violate NPOV.

(1)‘Likud’s position on the West Bank has never been in doubt. It is clear cut and unambiguous. Judea and Samaria (the biblical terms used by Likud for the West Bank) are integral parts of Israel and are not negotiable in a peace settlement.’ Willard A. Beling,Middle East Peace Plans, Routledge, 1986 p.17

(2) 'While the rhetoric of loyalty to Judea and Samaria was occasionally polished for true believers and coalition coalescence, the political reality forced Likud to settle for an uneasy hybrid on the question of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.’ Colin Schindler, ‘Likud and the Search for Eretz Israel: From the Bibnle to the Twenty-First Century,’ in Efraim Karsh (ed.), Israel: The First Hundred Years Routledge, 2000 pp.91-117 p.110

(3)‘The most powerful extra-parliamentary movement to mobilize against the agreement was the Council for the Settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Judea, Samaria, and Gaza are the historic biblical terms for the areas known to the rest of the world as the West Bank and Gaza.’ Gadi Wolfsfeld, Media and Political Conflict: News from the Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 1997 p.82

(4)‘Unlike their rivals in the Labor Party, however, Likud leaders maintained an ideological commitment to holding on to Judea and Samaria (their preferred Biblical terms for the West Bank) conquered in the 1967 war,' Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, Neil Caplan, Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace; Patterns, Problems, Possibilities, Indiana University Press, 1998 p.31

(5) ‘Although there was no alteration of the legal status of the West Bank – of Judea and Samaria (a term taken fromn Mandatory times and officially adopted to replace West Bank or the territories) – despite vocal demands by extreme right-wing groups for the imposition of Israeli law in those areas or their outright annexation,’ Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt, Jewish Civilization: The Jewish Historical Experience in a Comparative Perspective, SUNY Press, 1992 p.207

(6)re 1981 election. ‘Its unpredictability contributed to tensions and anxiety. Begin was particularly anxious for an additional term so that he could implement his plans for the massive Jewish settlement of “Judea and Samaria”, the biblical terms that the Likud government succeeded in substituting for what had previously been called by many the West Bank, the occupuied territories, or simply the territories. The successful gaining of the popular acceptance of these terms was a prelude to gaining popular acceptance of the government’s settlement policies'. Myron J. Aronoff, Israeli Visions and Divisions: Cultural Change and Political Conflict, Transaction Publishers, 1991 p.10Nishidani (talk) 14:00, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, I didn't read past "Jayjg, the paladin of Israeli POVing on I/P pages". Comment on content, not on the contributor. Jayjg ^(talk) 18:13, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the difference between us. I read everything, even patent nonsense. For the record, I made what I think is a fairly objective description of your extreme partisan behaviour in I/P articles because, with no justification in the thread, you interpreted my evidence as evidence for nothing more than a 'political agenda'. Since that was a personal construction on me as an editor it violated the same principle you now adduce in your own defence, i.e. Comment on content, not on the contributor. Nishidani (talk) 09:39, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, Jayjg, I'm really impressed by the number of references you've listed.

Meteormaker said, "and has already been refuted there." Please provide links to the refutations.

Nishidani said, "What Meteormaker, myself and any one else interested in NPOV maintain is that Samaria is POV, and West Bank NPOV. Your list merely shows the Israeli/Jewish POV.". Any wording which doesn't acknowledge the Israeli/Jewish POV (and all other significant POVs) is not NPOV. What specific wording in the article is being contested here? When it's convenient to use a single term (for example, in the title of an article, but also in most places within an article, for brevity) perhaps the most commonly used term is to be used, but I think it's an overgeneralization to simply state that that term is "NPOV". Rather, NPOV might require, for example, mentioning other terms in a "terminology" paragraph as well as using the most commonly-used term in most places in the article.

If Jayjg is proposing to add to the article a sentence like "The term "Samaria" is often used by non-Israelis", then WP:SYNTH is relevant. But if Jayjg is arguing on the talk page that Samaria is often used by non-Israelis, as an argument for putting something else (e.g. just "Samaria") into the article, then I don't see the relevance of WP:SYNTH. See this comment at WT:NOR, for example. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:30, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

The sentence over which the battle on Talk:Samaria rages is this:

"Samaria is [...] a term used for the mountainous northern part of what is today the West Bank. Israeli annexationists also use the combined term Judea and Samaria to refer to the modern West Bank."

As you can see, none of Jayjg's cites in any way disproves these statements. They are all exceptionally well supported [24][25]. Despite trying for several weeks, Jayjg has been unable to find even one reliable source (or indeed any source at all) for his position that "Samaria" is a widely accepted term for the modern (northern) West Bank, hence the synthesizing of anecdotal evidence and grasping for straws.

You asked for links to the refutations, here you go [26]. Note that I haven't had time to scrutinize more than the first seven of the items in the last iteration of his list (the ones he recycled from an earlier list), but even if they were all legit examples of non-Israelis using the term "Samaria", even a hundred such cites would not constitute proof of wide acceptance in the Wikipedia sense. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:18, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, what has happened here is that User:MeteorMaker has been attempting to remove all references to the term "Samaria" from Wikipedia, based on his theory that that toponym is not widely understood outside Israel, Not widely understood outside Israel. He hasn't actually provided any evidence for that theory, other than an argument based on how some sources use the term, or based on some statements people have made about how various groups prefer the phrase "Judea and Samaria" to "West Bank". In response, I have provided many examples of Western, non-Israeli publications using the term, which show that his theory is false, but he keeps trying to turn this around, claiming I have some theory instead. I don't have any theories; I just object to his removing existing references to "Samaria" on Wikipedia, based on his theories, which are unsupported and have, in fact, been refuted. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:41, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

And by the way, here's where he went on his Samaria-removing/unlinking spree - [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43] - and contrary to his edits, "Samaria" and "West Bank" are not synonyms. This is really just a spill-over from his previous battle, when he attempted apply the same theory to the term "Judea". He has done little editing unrelated to this since April 2009, aside from trying to prove that the Biblical promises of the Land of Israel were actually made to Ishmael too; check the Talk:Land of Israel for more detail on that. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:09, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Forgive me for saying you're being a bit dishonest now. Contrary to what you claim, I have in fact provided quite a lot of evidence from perfectly reliable sources [44][45] for my position that both "Judea" and "Samaria" are terms with at best very marginal modern usage outside Israel. You have provided none, except a list of anecdotal evidence that has been shown to contain solid explicit counterevidence of your position [46]

You claim you "don't have any theories", yet your position not only lacks support in any sources at all, it clashes spectacularly with every other online encyclopedia [47], news media [48], official government sites [49], academic works [50] and even Wikipedias own guidelines. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:48, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Strangely enough, none of those sources actually discuss the toponym "Samaria" - thus, you have still provided no sources for your claims. Which, of course, has been pointed out to you many times. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Coppertwig. I will reply to you, since Jayjg has admitted he doesn't read my evidence. You write:-.

'Any wording which doesn't acknowledge the Israeli/Jewish POV (and all other significant POVs) is not NPOV.'

No wikipedia article in the other language wiki I am familiar with adopts the innovation you are, by your remark, suggesting be adopted. In German Westjordanland, in Italian Cisgiordania, in French Cisjordanie are not invariably glossed by 'Samaria and Judea'. Being an English encyclopedia, we use the standard English term. We use the term 'West Bank' precisely because it is neutral to the parties (Israeli/ Palestinians), and therefore NPOV.

If you say Samaria and Judea is the Jewish/Israeli POV and warrants inclusion, then since there is also a set of corresponding Arabic regional terms for the West Bank and its sectors, by NPOV rules as you construe them, every mention of Israeli terms must be accompanied by equyivalent toponyms from Arabic, i.e. al-Diffa al-gharbī, which is a recipé for disaster, since it would mean every use of standard English and internationally agreed to terminology must require mechanical glosses in transcribed Hebrew and Arabic.

I will, if you have not noticed it in the disorder, provide 5 sequential analyses by front-ranking area specialists that show that in Israeli usage, the terms 'Samaria' and 'Judea' were revived after the conquest of the West Bank in 1967, replacing the international terminology in Israeli textbooks in order to establish the historic claims and connections to these Arab areas, and, especially after Begin's Likud adopted a programm of massive settlement, became de rigueur in the Israeli press, like many other terms, in order to describe those settlement blocs as taking place not on the 'West Bank' but in Biblical areas, and that the term is associated with the politics of the Israeli far right religious groups who aspire to have all the land annexed. This is extremely well documented. The term, even in Israel, has these charged political connotations, and instrumental uses. It is therefore (a) not neutral (b) expressive of an annexationaist mentality. This is not therefore an 'Israeli' POV, 'tout court'. It is also a POV associated with one particular lobby within the Israeli right. Many Israeli scholars use the word 'West Bank', which happens to be also the term common in Israel before 1967.

But the single most important thing, to which no one has answered, (except for a small admission by Ynhockey, who studies these things and understood the point), 'Samaria' and 'Judea' are not terms that correspond to the drawn lines on the maps used by all discussants of the conflict in that area.

>blockquote>'For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationalist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area between the green line and the Jordan River not as the West Bank, but as Judea and Samaria.’ Ian S.Lustick, For the Land and the Lord, 1988 p.205 n.4

They are not precise topological designations, but refer to general areas which overlap with parts of contemporary Israel. Worse still, the Biblical 'Samaria' is not commensurate with the present territorial designation of 'Samaria'. In most of the texts Jayjg snippeted from, the POV is Jewish Israeli, and the West Bank is frequently used, for English readers, to gloss the use of those words, whose territorial designations are not familiar to most English readers.Nishidani (talk) 09:17, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

That source discusses the fact that settlers prefer the phrase "Judea and Samaria". It is completely irrelevant to a discussion of the term "Samaria". And, by the way, none of the sources I've brought are "settlers". Please bring relevant material for discussion. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

No, as I will annotate over the next few days, the speciously impressive ('wow'!!) sources you muster are irrelevant. They are in good part, non-Israeli. They almost all come from Jewish sources, and they confuse historical periods, etc.etc. By the way, these are not 35 sources but far fewer. You use one author, Lustick, Pollack, Nevo, Weisburd, William Harris, etc.,several times each, as though they were independent sources.Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

You're right, they are 35 examples, not sources. The fact that they're non-Israeli and "from Jewish sources" is actually what is "irrelevant", as Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on country of birth or ethnicity of the author. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:21, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course not. But we are trying to establish English usage, not sectarian or ethnic usage. Evidently, the language current in Israeli sources or Jewish communities, which do naturally think of Shomron/Samaria, is one thing, and no one contests this usage. What is contested is the adoption in wiki of that political and emotive communal usage in the face of standard international usage. Many of those sources are referring to historic, not contemporary usage. More are reflecting, and remarking on its use in, settler and rightwing circles in Israel. Wiki does not disqualify sources based on ethnicity etc., but it does ask us to use NPOV terminology, and 'Samaria' is not NPOV, being the Jewish/Israeli and older Christianocentric/English wording down to the end of Mandatory times.'Northern West Bank' has no such problems. Nishidani (talk) 12:39, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You seem to have flipped the issue on its head, though. What has been going on is that User:MeteorMaker has taken it upon himself to remove any already-existing references to "Samaria" or "Judea" from Wikipedia, based on his unproved theory that the term is not well understood today. However, the sources used are not "Israeli" or "Jewish"; rather, they are typically American or British publications, written for general English-speaking audiences. The argument that the sources are "referring to historic usage" or "reflecting, and remarking on its use in, settler and rightwing circles in Israel" has also been tried, and found wanting. The sources are modern, and use the term entirely naturally; they do not enclose it in quotes, or insert caveats. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

<Sigh> This is the old trick of throwing up huge numbers of sources, presumably with the intent of impressing the casual observer into accepting the argument through their sheer apparent weight. The problem with this approach, as ever, is that a) on inspection the sources are often not quite as impressive as they might superficially appear; and b) it ignores the fact that plenty of other sources use different terms - "Samaria" is simply not the standard, consensus or majority terminology in current use in English language sources, especially in mainstream non-Israeli sources. It may be used 50 times in various places including reputable scholarly sources, but it is not used 1000s of times in other places (and please don't make an absurd request for me to "bring sources" proving that). As for the 181 point, see my post below - will you now be renaming the Jordan article "Transjordan"? --Nickhh (talk) 09:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Sources are not a "trick". On other hand, unsourced theories aren't actionable for editing purposes. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I see, you have in fact now asked me to bring sources, while waving WP policies at me like some kind of trump card. However the burden of course - as I and others have pointed out - is on those who wish to add or retain a disputed terminology to provide sources which suggest it is a mainstream and standard description of the area/district in question. And simply providing some individual examples of sources where "Samaria" has been used does not satisfy that requirement. Until you can find reliable sources that show it is the usual terminology, you are simply dragging everyone into rather pointless talk page debates and edit wars, and bizarrely challenging them to provide sources to disprove something that you haven't yet demonstrated to be the case. That, I believe, is in violation of WP:GETTINGTHINGSBACKTOFRONT and WP:ASSUMINGPRECISELYTHATWHICHYOUARETRYINGTOPROVE. And at the end of the day, what is being gained by this attempt to add or retain the additional (and contentious) word "Samaria" to what is currently a perfectly clear, accurate and well-sourced description "northern West Bank". We're not getting any extra clarity or improvement to the article, we're just creating needless disputes. --Nickhh (talk) 15:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Jayjg. You may strongly dislike my work in I/P articles, but I do not edit by playing tricks(which is a reflection on me, by the way and violates your own code). To the contrary, I welcome evidence that might challenge my perceptions. I have never disputed that 'Samaria and Judea' is standard in Israeli newspapers. I have affirmed that it was the common designation for the area under the British Mandate. I have noted many of your references (sorry, have not yet completed my review, but will in a few days) refer to the Mandatory period, and therefore are not valid examples of modern usage. That most of your sources come from Jewish/Israeli scholars is not coincidental, even if a large number of them gloss the term Samaria and Judea with (West Bank). One can actually verify this quite simply. You have never explained why in many of the sources you cite, the word 'Samaria' is itself glossed by ((northern)West Bank). Glosses of this kind are intended to oriente the reader, by annotating a term that may be unfamiliar with one that (s)he readily recognizes. To all of you it may be the most natural thing in the world to identify that area by its Jewish/Biblical label. It is definitely not so for the inhabitants, who have mainly abandoned speaking of as-Samara since 1967, and for the rest of the English-speaking world. To non-Jewish native speakers, Samaria, if they recognize it at all, is a religious term for a 'region in Palestine'(OED), whose (of the 14 people I have interrogated or emailed over the past few days none could tell me, when they did associate it with Palestine or the West Bank, whether it was north or south) location is not clear. Anecdotal evidence of course, and not material. But it is very much material to the argument that there is a clear NPOV violation involved in insisting that areas that now have official Arabic governance, jurisdiction and phraseology reflected in international documentation, be referred to by the chosen, POV term of Jewish settlers resident there under the protection of the Occupying power that is Israel. As one of your own sources remarked, Gerson I believe, naming is also an appropriative act. The 4 villages referred to in the passage were in the Jenin governorate of the northern West Bank: while we can dispute the POV of Samaria, no one has provided from your side an argument to show that 'northern West Bank' suffers from the same ideological bias, since it is precise topologically, politically neutral and a recognized mode of reference endorsed by international usage.Nishidani (talk) 09:57, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about "tricks", Nickhh did. Your original research, which involved interrogating 14 people, is interesting, but not relevant to policy or article content. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

I've made a modest suggestion here - is that any use? PR^talk 12:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, given the fact that this debate is taking place, something like that may be necessary and helpful. But it would of course make much more sense if we just used the simple, uncontroversial and geographically & politically accurate phrasing "northern West Bank" (which is of course used by the vast majority of sources) and avoided attempts to import additional and loaded terminology on top of it, even if some editors can find one or two places where it is used. It may only be the single word "Samaria", but those editors know exactly what they are trying to do here. --Nickhh (talk) 09:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, "those editors" are reflecting the language used in sources, and rejecting systematic removal of English-language geographical descriptors used in multiple reliable sources based on unsourced opinion. Jayjg ^(talk)

Sorry, Jayjg. You may strongly dislike my work in I/P articles, but I do not edit by playing tricks(which is a reflection on me, by the way and violates your own code). To the contrary, I welcome evidence that might challenge my perceptions. I have never disputed that 'Samaria and Judea' is standard in Israeli newspapers. I have affirmed that it was the common designation for the area under the British Mandate. I have noted many of your references (sorry, have not yet completed my review, but will in a few days) refer to the Mandatory period, and therefore are not valid examples of modern usage. That most of your sources come from Jewish/Israeli scholars is not coincidental, even if a large number of them gloss the term Samaria and Judea with (West Bank). One can actually verify this quite simply. You have never explained why in many of the sources you cite, the word 'Samaria' is itself glossed by ((northern)West Bank). Glosses of this kind are intented to oriente the reader, by annotating a term that may be unfamiliar with one that (s)he readily recognizes. To all of you it may be the most natural thing in the world to identify that area by its Jewish/Biblical label. It is definitely not so for the inhabitants, who have mainly abandoned speaking of as-Samara since 1967, and for the rest of the English-speaking world. To non-Jewish native speakers, Samaria, if they recognize it at all, is a religious term for a 'region in Palestine'(OED), whose (of the 14 people I have interrogated or emailed over the past few days none could tell me, when they did associate it with Palestine or the West Bank, whether it was north or south) location is not clear. Anecdotal evidence of course, and not material. But it is very much material to the argument that there is a clear NPOV violation involved in insisting that areas that now have official Palestinian governance, jurisdiction and phraseology reflected in international documentation, be referred to by the chosen, POV term of Jewish settlers resident there under the protection of the Occupying power that is Israel. As one of your own sources remarked, Gerson I believe, naming is also an appropriate act. The 4 villages referred to in the passage were in what is now known as the Jenin governorate of the northern West Bank: while we can dispute the POV of Samaria, no one has provided from your side an argument to show that 'northern West Bank' suffers from the same ideological bias, since it is precise topologically, politically neutral and a recognized mode of reference endorsed by international usage.Nishidani (talk) 10:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You've duplicated your comment. I've responded to the first instance, above. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary break 1

Nov 27: [51] Jayjg added more "sources", ostensibly to provide support for the hypothesis that "Samaria" is used outside Israel:

* (1)"In 2004 the Israeli Government and Parliament approved the evacuation of the Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip and four settlements from northern Samaria." Nurit Kliot, "Resettlement of Refugees in Finland and Cyprus: A Comparative Analysis and Possible Lessons for Israel", in Arie Marcelo Kacowicz, Pawel Lutomski. Population Resettlement in International Conflicts: A Comparative Study, Lexington Books, 2007, p. 57.

• (2)"Instead, he chose total disengagement from Gaza and the dismantlement of four settlements in northern Samaria." Zvi Shtauber, Yiftah Shapir. The Middle East Strategic Balance 2005-2006, Sussex Academic Press, 2007, p. 123.

• (3)"Prior to forming his new coalition with the Labor Party, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon strong-armed members of his Likud cabinet to support Labor's idea of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and four settlements in northern Samaria." Getz, Leonard. "Likudniks Against Sharon: Rebels or Loyalists?", The Jewish Exponent, 01-13-2005.

• (4)"Understandably so: in the end, the Gaza withdrawal took all of six days while the pullout from four settlements in northern Samaria was accomplished in a single day." Zelnick, Robert. Israel's Unilaterialism: Beyond Gaza, Hoover Press, 2006, p. 157.

• (5)"The four West Bank settlements that Israel is evacuating are all located in the biblical Land of Israel — territory that observant Jews believe was promised to the Jewish people in the Old Testament. The area of the West Bank, known as northern Samaria, was inhabited by the tribe of Menashe, one of the 10 tribes of Israel that were forced into exile." "Biblical significance of West Bank settlements", International Herald Tribune, August 23, 2005.

• (6)"Others not only support comprehensive talks but call for abandonment of Israel’s plan to disengage from Gaza and four settlements in northern Samaria." Sofaer, Abraham D. "Disengagement First", Hoover Digest 2005 No. 1, Hoover Institution.

• (7)"In August 2005, Israel vacated the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip--mainly in Gush Katif--as well as four settlements in northern Samaria." Inbari, Motti. "Fundamentalism in crisis - the response of the Gush Emunim rabbinical authorities to the theological dilemmas raised by Israel's Disengagement plan", Journal of Church and State, Autumn, 2007.

• (8)"Four settlements will be evacuated in the northern Samaria region of the West Bank." Tamir, Naftali. "Naftali Tamir: Retreat with peace in mind", The Australian, August 15, 2005.</ref> They were abandoned as part of Israeli withdrawals from these areas in 1982 (Sinai) and 2005.

Let's take a look at them, one by one, and see if they fare any better than his earlier attempts to prove that "Samaria" is used as a toponym for the modern West Bank outside Israel (see above in this section and here).

• (1) Nurit Kliot is an Israeli [52].
• (2) Zvi Shtauber and Yiftah Shapir are Israelis [53][54].
• (3) Leonard Getz is the National Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America [55].
• (4) Robert Zelnick, unsurprisingly, states the opposite of what Jayjg sets out to prove:

"[...] Judea and Samaria, what most of the world refers to as the West Bank."[56]

• (5) "The area of the West Bank, known as northern Samaria, was inhabited by the tribe of Menashe, one of the 10 tribes of Israel that were forced into exile" is clearly a reference to ancient history. The article uses "West Bank consistently, as does every article in the International Herald Tribune online archive. There are 5144 instances of "West Bank", while "Samaria" is used 48 times, every time accompanied by an explanation of the term to the effect of "the name the settlers use for the West Bank". [57].
• (6) Abraham D. Sofaer was a member of a Zionist org in his youth [58]. Yes, you are allowed one faux pas in your life, but interestingly, I have not been able to find more than one instance of him using the term "Samaria" either.
• (7) Motti Inbari is an Israeli [59].
• (8) Naftali Tamir is an Israeli [60].

Since none of the sources supports Jayjg's position (two of them (4, 5) in fact contradict it), and, being mere anecdotal evidence, even a hundred of them wouldn't be enough to support it without an unhealthy dose of WP:SYNTH, I have now removed them. MeteorMaker (talk) 19:54, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Going through the objections to these reliable sources one by one, to see if they fare any better than the previous objections:

1. Published by Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, based in Lanham, Maryland, United States of America.
2. Published by Sussex Academic Press, based in the United Kingdom.
3. Published in The Jewish Exponent, a Philadelphia, United States newspaper.
4. The citation in question refers to Samaria, not the Israeli administrative district "Judea and Samaria", and does not use it in quotes etc. Published by the Hoover Institution, based in Stanford University, United States of America.
5. The citation in question refers to Samaria, and says it is known as Samaria. Not that is was called that in ancient history. Published by the International Herald Tribune, based in Paris, France.
6. Published by the Hoover Institution, based in Stanford University, United States of America. Being a member of a Zionist organization is not a faux pas.
7. Published in the Journal of Church and State, a publication of Baylor University, Texas, United States of America.
8. Published in The Australian, the largest selling national newspaper in Australia.

And finally, Wikipedia does not discriminate based on ethnicity or national origin, and it's rather distasteful to see attempts to do so. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

If you don't discriminate based on ethnicity or national origin, how come most of your sources are Israeli? Where are all the other nationalities and ethnicities, for instance the Palestinians? MeteorMaker (talk) 01:41, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Please stop categorizing sources by alleged ethnicity or national origin, it's inappropriate and distasteful. The sources are American, British, French, and Australian publications, as shown. Jayjg ^(talk) 01:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Except most of the people quoted are Israelis, and thus of very limited use as proof of non-Israeli use of the term "Samaria". Your attempts to paint me as a racist is a severe breach of WP:CIVIL and will be reported, should they continue. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Again, the sources are American, British, French, and Australian publications, as shown, and it is you who continually brings up the alleged ethnicity or national origins of the various authors, as means of approving or disapproving them. Feel free to report yourself. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:28, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Your assumption that nationality is suspended by having one's words printed in a foreign publication is not exactly a mainstream one, and I think you will have a hard time trying to find support for it in WP guidelines or policies. If you want to present more anecdotal evidence of non-Israeli use of the toponym "Samaria", you will have to find non-Israeli sources, simple as that. Surely that shouldn't be such a big problem if the term is as common as you purport it to be? MeteorMaker (talk) 02:49, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not "presenting evidence" of anything; I'm merely using the terminology used by the reliable sources. It is you who is trying to prove theories about language, based on the alleged ethnicity or national origins of the authors. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

By some odd coincidence, and to satisfy a sudden desire to provide cites for a long-standing sentence about withdrawal of settlements in Sinai, Gaza and the West Bank, you happen to find no less than eight that all talk about "Samaria", which you insist must be included no matter how POV they are, because they are reliable sources. As an admin, you should be aware of at least the most basic of WP's policies:

A common type of dispute occurs when an editor asserts that a fact is both verifiable and cited, and should therefore be included.

In these types of disputes, it is important to note that verifiability lives alongside neutrality, it does not override it. A matter that is both verifiable and supported by reliable sources might nonetheless be proposed to make a point or cited selectively; painted by words more favorably or negatively than is appropriate; made to look more important or more dubious than a neutral view would present; marginalized or given undue standing; described in slanted terms which favor or weaken it; or subject to other factors suggestive of bias.

Verifiability is only one content criterion. Neutral point of view is a core policy of Wikipedia, mandatory, non-negotiable, and to be followed in all articles. Concerns related to undue weight, non-neutral fact selection and wording, and advancing a personal view, are not addressed even slightly by asserting that the matter is verifiable and cited. [61]

MeteorMaker (talk) 23:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course, the context of the citations was your sudden spree of trying to remove all references to Samaria from Wikipedia. But apparently you've now adopted a new theory - before you claimed that the "toponym Samaria" was not well understood, or not well understood outside Israel. Now you're claiming it violates WP:NPOV? Jayjg ^(talk) 23:20, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

That is the nature of minority terminology. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:37, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I will now find NPOV sources that cannot be considered partisan and add them to the article. MeteorMaker (talk) 09:31, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

To what end? The sentence already includes the terminology "West Bank"; in fact, in accord with NPOV, it includes both "Samaria" and "West Bank". Jayjg ^(talk) 21:21, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The West Bank is an NPOV term, "Samaria" is not, because it's used by only one side on the conflict, and hardly even that [62]. In order to provide a counterweight, we would have to add eight sources that use terms like "Zionist-occupied Palestine". I can do that if that's what you want. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:52, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Your new theory is interesting, but do you have any source for your claim that the term "Samaria" is not "NPOV"? Also, please avoid WP:POINT. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:05, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, Jayjg, with infinite patience I once again direct you to these two diffs [63][64], that make it clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that "Samaria" is an extreme minority term compared to "the West Bank", and used exclusively in Israel, one of the sides in the condlict. That is the very definition of WP:POV. If you disagree with any of the facts I've presented, something resembling a reliable source in support of your opinion would be much better than your trademark throwing of random WP policies and repeating of the same broken record response over and over. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

And with infinite patience I once again direct you to the WP:SYN policy:

Synthesis occurs when an editor puts together multiple sources to reach a novel conclusion that is not in any of the sources. Even if published by reliable sources, material must not be connected together in such a way that it constitutes original research. If the sources cited do not explicitly reach the same conclusion, or if the sources cited are not directly related to the article subject, then the editor is engaged in original research.

Something resembling a reliable source in support of your opinions would be much better than your trademark throwing of various primary sources that nowhere make the same claims that you do, and repeating of the same broken record response over and over. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:PARROTING, stop cutting and pasting my posts with just a few words changed. Of all the random WP policies you have thrown my way, none has been more off the mark than WP:SYNTH. I have presented reliable, NPOV sources [65][66] and quoted them more or less verbatim. You have not presented any sources at all for your opposing position, except weak anecdotal evidence and misrepresented sources that on closer inspection turn out to contradict your own claims 100%. In this discussion, you have relied entirely on obstructionism, blatant wikilawyering and refusal to abide by WP policies, while willfully misrepresenting other editors arguments, constantly and falsely accusing them of breaches of WP policies, and, worst of all, attempting to paint them as racists [67]. Certainly not what one expects from an admin. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Balderdash and pure projection. Quote the sources that say Samaria is "not a modern toponym", or "not widely understood outside Israeli", or "not commonly used today", or is "an extreme minority term", or is "not NPOV" or any other of your myriad claims. Quote them saying it. Their words, not your synthesized arguments. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

For the millionth time, where do you see those claims in the suggested changes to the Samaria article? : 'Samaria [...] is a term used for the mountainous northern part of what is today the West Bank. The combined term Judea and Samaria, despite some geographical imprecision, is used in Israel to refer to the West Bank as a whole.'

You can't say you haven't seen sources that state that "Judea" and "Samaria" are Israel-specific (and thus POV) terminology either — in fact, most of the ones we've used in this debate (eg Lustick and Zelnick) were inadvertently brought up by none other than yourself. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:30, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

These sources and others cited elsewhere on this page seem pretty explicit to me, in saying that it is a minority terminology with a political message behind it, used primarily in Israel by those wishing to lay claim to the land. Did you fail to read these ones too? Shouting "Synthesis!!" doesn't mean that there is synthesis going on. --Nickhh (talk) 00:00, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

The first set of sources brought by MeteorMaker don't say anything about the term's modern usage. The second set state that certain groups prefer the phrase "Judea and Samaria", but say nothing about Samaria being a "historical term", or really anything about the term Samaria at all. Did you fail to read these ones too? Claiming there is no synthesis when a quite obviously synthesize argument is being advanced doesn't mean that there is no synthesis going on. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:05, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Since the discussion migrated here from Talk:Samaria, all editors may not be familiar with what's discussed. Here is the suggested sentences that Jayg keeps deleting:

Samaria is [...] a term used for the mountainous northern part of what is today the West Bank. Israeli annexationists also use the combined term Judea and Samaria to refer to the modern West Bank.

Now compare to the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia cite I've given:

Samaria, central region, ancient Palestine. [...] it was bounded by Galilee to the north, Judaea to the south, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the Jordan River to the east. It corresponds roughly to the northern portion of the modern West Bank territory. [68]

So, Jayjg, where is your "synthesis"? I see only a virtually verbatim quote. In case you're now going to shift the focus of your WP:SYNTH "argument" to the usage domain note, allow me to point out that it is a virtually verbatim quote too, from the Ian Lustick book you, ironically, brought up yourself:

"For political purposes, and despite the geographical imprecision involved, the annexationist camp in Israel prefers to refer to the area between the Green Line and the Jordan River not as the West Bank but as Judea and Samaria." [69]

(Copied from Talk:Samaria) MeteorMaker (talk) 00:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

How many times must this be repeated to you? Britannica's discussion of the ancient kingdom of Samaria tells us nothing about the modern use of the term "Samaria". Similarly, the fact that certain groups prefer to use the phrase "Judea and Samaria" instead of "West Bank" tells us nothing about the modern use of the term "Samaria". Quote sources that discuss the modern usage of the term Samaria. Quote them directly discussing its usage. Stop synthesizing arguments. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:20, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

You postulate that they exist, you find them and quote them. I have not been able to find a single source that claims "Samaria" is a modern toponym. All online encyclopedias say Samaria is an ancient district, located inside what is today the West Bank, and so should Wikipedia, unless you can find enough reliable sources to outweigh the ones I've presented [70][71]. So far, you've presented nothing but your unfounded opinion. MeteorMaker (talk) 00:39, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

You haven't been able to find any sources that discuss "Samaria" as a "toponym" period, yet you insist that it is not a "modern toponym" nonetheless. You must find sources for your claims. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Every source I've given indicates directly (or indirectly) that "Samaria" is not a modern toponym outside Israel, by 1) using the past tense ("Samaria was..."), 2) placing it in ancient Palestine, or 3) explicitly stating that only Israelis (or Jews, or settlers) use the term (generally prefixed with "Biblical"). [72][73]. Reading them will make that rather obvious. Now, I asked for a (non-anecdotalsource for your claim, that "Samaria" satisfies Wikipedia's widely accepted term requirements. MeteorMaker (talk) 15:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Begging the question

Certain editors still keep restoring Jayjg's reference to "Samaria" long after the term has been shown to be an extreme minority term [74], used exclusively in Israel and thus a clear violation of both WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE as well as WP:NCGN. The stated rationale is that Jayjg has provided eight sources where the word "Samaria" occurs. The mistaken assumption that reliable sources trump WP:NPOV aside, his very selective choice of sources is a perfect example of begging the question:

• Per WP:NCGN, WP uses only established English toponyms. "Samaria" has not been shown to enjoy such acceptance and is a definite minority term compared to "the West Bank" even in Israel [75].
• It is not contested that "Samaria" is used by (some) Israelis. Thus, Israeli cites are of no value as evidence that the term is used outside Israel.
• Of Jayjg's eight cites, four are by Israelis [76] and two are by people with a documented affiliation with Zionist organizations.
• Of the remaining two, one (International Herald Tribune) is a ref to ancient Samaria (another uncontested usage). Both IHT and the last source (Zelnick) contradict Jayjg's position by explicitly stating that "Samaria" is Israel-specific terminology.

To sum up, none of Jayjg's sources serves as evidence for his position, two even contradict it. Add the WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and WP:NCGN issues and we find that as justification for introducing the term "Samaria" on Wikipedia, Jayjg's eight cites are of zero value. MeteorMaker (talk) 18:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC) MeteorMaker (talk) 18:46, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Certain editors still keep removing reliable references to "Samaria" despite the fact that their claims that it is "not well understood outside Israel", "not a modern toponym", "an extreme minority usage" are unproven original research. The mistaken assumption that these personal opinions trump WP:NPOV aside:

• Per WP:NPOV, WP uses shows multiple views, rather than asserting only one view is correct. "Samaria" has not been shown to "not a modern toponym" or "not well understood outside Israel". The article in any event complies with MeteorMaker's WP:NCGN objection by providing the term he prefers.
• Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin.
• Of the eight cites provided, five were published in the United States of America, one in the United Kingdom, one in France, and one in Australia. No sources indicate the usage is historical, nor do any state that "Samaria" is " Israel-specific terminology".

To sum up, MeteorMaker has brought no sources that serve as evidence for his position, and dozens have been brought that contradict it. Add the WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:NOR issues and we find that as justification for removing the term "Samaria" on Wikipedia, MeteorMaker's arguments are of zero value. Jayjg ^(talk) 06:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, the parrot argument is for four-year-olds, so please try to come up with a real argument instead. I will ignore (most of) the obvious nonsense and focus on your statement "Wikipedia does not disqualify sources based on their alleged ethnicity or national origin", another ill-advised attempt to paint your opponents as racists. I'm confident you are aware of the potential consequences of further grave breaches of WP:CIVIL.

Now, when trying to prove that "Samaria" is used by others than Israelis, Israeli sources aren't the best evidence, I'm sure you agree. It doesn't change anything that they are quoted/published by media in other countries. It's as if you were trying to prove that kangaroos exist outside Australia: "Look! They're on TV! British, American and French TV!" MeteorMaker (talk) 22:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

that's a flawed analogy. The proper analogy is: MM: Kangaroos are only called that in Australia. J: No, they're called that in the US, Britain and France, too, look - here's an American/British/French TV show that calls them "kangaroos". MM: Oh, but the producer of the American TV served with ANZAC when he was 18, so it doesn't count. Canadian Monkey (talk) 22:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Wow, talk about flawed analogy... "Kangaroo" is the mainstream term in English (and the French call them "kangourou" in any case). Pretty easy to check if you doubt it. Now, somebody manages to sneak in a ref in the kangaroo article as "kngvru", citing 8 sources that all spell it that way. On closer examination, it turns out that six are transliterations from the Israeli word "קנגורו" (and two are simply misspelled versions of the English word). Undaunted, a coterie of editors goes to edit war, insisting it must be there alongside the more accepted "kangaroo" because of (insert random WP policy here). MeteorMaker (talk) 23:15, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

When you show that the uses of "Samaria" in English sources are misspellings or transliterations of some Hebrew word, we'll pick up this analogy. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:22, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I (and others) have shown [77][78] it to be the clear minority term vs "West Bank", used exclusively by one side in the I/P conflict, and for WP purposes, that is more than enough. Please review WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and WP:NCGN.MeteorMaker (talk) 23:30, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

When you show that the uses of "Samaria" in English sources are misspellings or transliterations of some Hebrew word, we'll pick up this analogy. if you wnat to try another analogy, which has a little more bearing on this situation, go ahead. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:33, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Double post? Anyway, if you want to try to prove that X exists outside country Y, an example consisting of an X in country Y isn't the best or most clever evidence one can imagine. Which was my point. MeteorMaker (talk) 23:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Assuming X=Samaria and Y=Israel, many examples which consist of X in ~Y have been shown. The CIA map is just one such example that you surely remember. many others are available on this page, including five published in the United States of America, one in the United Kingdom, one in France, and one in Australia in this section aloneCanadian Monkey (talk)

Sigh. Does for instance the Israeli ambassador to Australia lose his citizenship when an Australian newspaper quotes him [79]? What if he's quoted in a Japanese newspaper, or an Iranian? You must be very short of examples of outside-Israel use of "Samaria" if you constantly have to pad them with liberal amounts of Israeli ones, and tie yourself in knots explaining how not even Israeli gov't officials are really Israelis. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a big difference between a statement by an Israeli government official, and the use of the term by academics, in an academic publication intended for general audiences outside of Israel. The latter are fully acceptable examples of the use of the term outside of Israel, indicating it is well understood and common, regardless of the ethnicity of their author. Canadian Monkey (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

We agree that one of the cites should be removed then. The last one on Jayjg's list [80] is in fact a quote by the Israeli ambassador to Australia. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

And again, user:Canadian Monkey has reverted to Jayjg's version, apparently unaware that WP:RS does not override WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. [81] MeteorMaker (talk) 22:50, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm quite aware of the relevant policies. I disagree with you that the version I've reverted to violates WP:NPOV or WP:UNDUE. Canadian Monkey (talk) 22:53, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

That cannot be interpreted in any other way than that you mean:

1. "Samaria" is not a minority term (ie, it's used at least as frequently in English as "West Bank").
2. Use of "Samaria" as a modern toponym is not restricted to Israel.

Do you have a reliable source for these two claims?

MeteorMaker (talk) 23:24, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Numerous non-Israeli reliable sources have been shown to you that use "Samaria" as a modern toponym. Feel free to reread the discussion. (Hopefully without any reference to the ethnicity of authors or political affiliations from their youth years, which are not only immaterial, but distasteful) Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Kindly refrain from making distasteful borderline accusations of racism, and link to one source that claims that 1) "Samaria" is not a minority term (ie, it's used at least as frequently in English as "West Bank") and 2) Use of "Samaria" as a modern toponym is not restricted to Israel.

MeteorMaker (talk) 23:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

When you stop making distasteful claims, people will stop calling you on it. It is not too late to strike out your comments regarding Sofaer, Getz or the lady who collected JNF funds at her Oregon temple. Numerous uses of" Samaria" as a modern toponym, from sources outside of Israel have been shown. Feel free to reread the discussion. Canadian Monkey (talk) 23:58, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Again, instead of calling WP policies "distasteful", please show one reliable source that claims that 1) "Samaria" is not a minority term (ie, it's used at least as frequently in English as "West Bank") and 2) use of "Samaria" as a modern toponym is not restricted to Israel.

If you fail to do that, your claim that the "Samaria" version does not violate WP:NPOV or WP:UNDUE also fails. Your personal opinion (or synthesis of anecdotal evidence) does not trump the multiple reliable sources that have been presented here and elsewhere [82][83]. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:09, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

You misread. I am not calling WP policies distasteful - I am calling your actions and edits, which have no basis in WP policy, such as digging up decades-old political affiliations of Jewish leaders or the community-service activities of Jewish community members, in order to discredit them, distasteful. And once again, numerous uses f "Samaria" as a modern toponym outside of Israel have been shown - feel free to refresh your memory by rereading the discussion here, and on Talk:Samaria. Canadian Monkey (talk) 18:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

One would think it's expected of the National Vice President of the Zionist Organization of America to use Zionist-approved terminology. Interesting choice for an NPOV source anyway.

Since you didn't directly address my question, I assume you have no sources for your claims that 1) "Samaria" is not a minority term (ie, it's used at least as frequently in English as "West Bank") and 2) use of "Samaria" as a modern toponym is not restricted to Israel. Then, kindly revert back. MeteorMaker (talk) 10:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Terminology section

Just a suggestion, but for those involved in the Judea and Samaria discussion above, you might want to consider adding information about this from some of the sources cited above to the Terminology section. I think it's relevant, in that it forms part of the favoured terminology used by many settlers and their supporters. Anyway, jus a thought. Tiamut^talk 00:39, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Just a note: It's also used by people who don't support settlers as it is official Israeli terminology. Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 09:04, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Why do we have to use Israeli terminology in wikipedia to describe the evacuation of four Israeli settlements from the Jenin Governorate, which strictly speaking, is where they were withdrawn from?Nishidani (talk) 12:27, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps because some people see the "Jenin Governorate" and the removal of Jews (or "settlers") from the area, as a concession of part of ancient Israel in exchange for peaceful co-existence. Oddly, these concessions do not seem to work, as the more concessions are offered, the more are demanded until in fact all of Palestine is liberated. Talk about vague boundaries...what exactly does the liberation of Palestine mean? I mean, what part of Israel would be left after Palestine has been liberated? I've always wondered that. If you can clarify it for me, Nishidani, I'd be really grateful. Tundrabuggy (talk) 06:49, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Uh, just a note Tundra, on your state of mind. Ancient Israel is not a contemporary actor in Middle East negotiations, one capable of making concessions. The US state department has never to my knowledge sent a fax to Shechem to ask David, Abraham and the other lads to derapture themselves and come back and participate in talks at the UN, Geneva, or elsewhere in the real world. Still I appreciate the boutade. I'll paste and copy it into my book of weird statements, thanks.Nishidani (talk) 11:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

@Tundrabuggy - if I wrote anything like that, I'd be heavily chastised, and very likely blocked for SOAP-BOXING. I have much less rhetorical questions to ask, I dare not do so. I can't even get an answer to perfectly proper questions about the CoI implications of people who've carried a gun in the region. I know for sure we'd never accept a Palestinian editor in that position. PR^talk 12:13, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

PR, please make comments that are relevant and actionable with regards to article content. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:23, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

181/Samaria

UN General Assembly Resolution 181 (dated to 1947 of course) seems to be being cited as a key piece of evidence as to why we should refer to "Samaria". Here is the whole text for those who want to have a look - Res 181. It does indeed make references to "Samaria". It also makes reference to "Transjordan". Sixty years later, neither term is in common usage in the English language to describe the northern West Bank or Jordan respectively. The names which are used for geographical and administrative areas change and develop all the time. Language more generally changes over the years - there are plenty of words that were in use in the 1940s which would simply not be used in standard conversation now, due to political concerns, changes in meaning, context and interpretation etc. --Nickhh (talk) 09:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

You are confusing and conflating the naming of administrative districts,and the naming of geographical areas. The former do indeed change rather frequently - what was called Transjordan in 1947 became The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in 1950, and was known as part of the eyalet of Syria under the Ottoman empire. However, the geographical region called "The Jordan valley" contained within the above administrative districts (no matter what their name) was called the same thing throughout. A similar situation exists with regards to Samaria: This geographical region has been contained with the administrative districts of the Kingdom of Israel (The Northern Kingdom), Iudaea-Palestina (under Roman rule), the eyalet of Syria under the Ottoman empire, the British Mandate of Palestine, and now, as either "The West Bank" or "Judea and Samaria", depending on your political orientation. However, the geographical region always was and still is known as "Samaria", as numerous examples provided both here and under Talk:Samaria, show. Canadian Monkey (talk) 01:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm not confusing anything, since I wasn't being that specific about what capacity the name "Samaria" is being used in - I was merely making the very general point that this is quite simply not what this area is called (whether as a geographical, political or administrative unit) in most current, mainstream, standard sources. Any more than Mumbai is called Bombay, Chennai is called Madras, Dorset is part of Wessex etc --Nickhh (talk) 15:33, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

And you are ignoring that 'Judea and Samaria' is the Israeli term for what is an occupied territory, which in all preliminary negotiations has been accepted as constituting what both sides agree will be a Palestinian area (Sharon even withdrew 4 settlements from it on this basis, and it is precisely a text referring to his unilateral withdrawal from four settlements which is under consideration), and therefore is a strongly partisan POV, as many of the books in Jayjg's list admit. If an Israeli POV term is to be introduced, then its corresponding Palestinian term has to be introduced, and nonsense begins. Administrative districts are also geographical districts by the way. Nishidani (talk) 08:31, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Compromise suggestion: As far as Israel is in concern, settlements belonged to the Samaria municipal district. Perhaps it would be agreed as a two way compromise to make this change but write "district" instead of region? Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 11:17, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sensible thinking, Jaak. I'm still trying to find time to finish my review, and then an analysis of sources, and will then look at it. The problem in this proposal only appears to be that in using 'districts' for areas, the Gaza Strip then, grammatically, becomes itself a 'district'. Still I appreciate the suggestion.Nishidani (talk) 11:58, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Sharon and removal of settlements

The references about this are relevant to the article and from RS. I've restored them (with thanks to those that did the original research). Remvoing sets of references in a whole sale manner is usually not a good idea, it leads to a poor encycopedia Oboler (talk) 01:07, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

"with thanks to those that did the original research": WP:OR? MeteorMaker has made an excellent case refuting just those sources above.

Cheers, pedrito - talk - 28.11.2008 08:31

MM used ridiculous original research, including the disqualification of sources on the grounds that they are "Israeli", or "Zionists" - which is not allowed on wikipedia. Removing well sourced, relevant material is borderline vandalism. Don't do it. NoCal100 (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

No. You need sources that say that Samaria is somehow the preferred term for the West Bank. Those sources don't cut it. Jayjg, trying to give examples of people using that term, has been using them to make the WP:SYNTHetic argument that the term "Samaria" is widely used outside of Israel, yet using Israeli authors somewhat defeats that purpose.

Again, you would need a source showing that "Samaria" is the preferred term, not just a bunch of (Israeli) sources using the term itself.

Cheers, pedrito - talk - 28.11.2008 16:30

no, since no one is making the claim that Samaria is the preferred term, no sources supporting it need to be provided. The claim is that the settlements were removed from Samaria, and sources saying that, in those exact words, were provided. The sources are not 'Israeli", and Wikipedia does not discriminate against sources based on ethnic origin. NoCal100 (talk) 16:52, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, if it is not the preferred name/term for the region, then it should not be used, as it adds nothing to the article but confusion. Cheers, pedrito - talk - 28.11.2008 16:55

what it adds is precision. The west bank is a large place, "northern west bank" includes regions that are not in Samaria. There's no reason not to use a precise term, when 8 separate reliable sources do so in this context. NoCal100 (talk) 16:58, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

You aren't seriously arguing that Samaria is more precisely defined geographically than the West Bank, are you? pedrito - talk - 28.11.2008 17:03

of course I am. Would you like an explanation of the difference? NoCal100 (talk) 17:34, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I would (genuinely). As far as I am aware - although I may not be 100% right here - the combined (and politically loaded) term "Judea and Samaria", in so far as it is used, does refer to a specific, defined area, more or less the same as that covered by the term "West Bank", subject to issues around Jerusalem. However when Samaria is used on its own, it is merely a vague indicator that we are talking about the northern part of that area - I am not aware that there is any defined or official (Israeli) boundary as to where Samaria "starts". In addition of course there is the point that Samaria is more commonly used in its historic sense to refer to a larger area, whose boundaries are even less clear. That adds up to plenty of imprecision, in more than one respect. You are also misrepresenting MM's point about the majority of cited sources being Israeli, apparently in a bid to suggest they were applying racist criteria to sources. And of course, when it comes to matters of interpretation or when there is dispute about terminology, of course we should be looking for the "preferred" version or term, not cherry-picking sources. Yes many sources use the word "Samaria", often as a political statement. But many more do not, and avoid using the word quite deliberately. WP:RS does not work in isolation - WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE etc apply as well. "Northern West Bank" is by far the most common description in standard modern use for this area, as well as being the most simple, neutral and accurate. That description would be agreed on by 99% of WP:RS. Again, what is added by having the minority-use word "Samaria" bunged in on top of it, especially in the lead? --Nickhh (talk) 18:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Samaria is the hill country of the central, northern part of the region (to avoid using any loaded terms). It is obviously a more geographically precise term than "west bank", which includes areas as far south as Yata, in the southern Hebron hills, a distance of more than 100km away, in a totally different geographic and geological area. The northern West bank also includes the northern Jordan valley, which is not in Samaria. You are correct that there is no official boundary for that area, just like there is no " official boundary" for the Mojave desert - yet I'm sure you'll agree that the statement "Twentynine Palms is a town in the Mojave Desert" more precisely defines the location of he town than " "Twentynine Palms is a town in the California", or "Twentynine Palms is a town in the United States". NoCal100 (talk) 18:58, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

To a non-Californian who has only a very vague idea where the Mojave desert is, "Southeast California" is in fact a much more precise description. Particularly so if the term "the Mojave Desert" were exclusively used in California. MeteorMaker (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

No, the Mohave desert is a precise location. Southern California includes areas like San Diego or LA, which are far from the desert, and share none of the relevant geographical features. You are confused between "precise" - which the Mojave desert is - and "imprecise but gives a rough indication for the ignorant, using terms they might understand" - which may be ok for casual chit-chat, but not for an encyclopedia. NoCal100 (talk) 20:33, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

San Diego and LA are hardly located in southeast California, so I don't think anybody except the terminally ignorant would be misled by such a description (and the Mojave Desert coincides more or less exactly with "southeast California" anyway, like "Samaria" and "northern West Bank"). However, the discussion isn't about precision — what "precision" would we gain by (falsely) stating in the Samaria article that the toponym is extant, when all the evidence shows it's exclusively used as a term for the ancient region? MeteorMaker (talk) 20:59, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

so first you claim that '"Southeast California" is in fact a much more precise description.' - and when that's shown to be completely false, you back-pedal to 'the discussion isn't about precision'. Indeed. It is about POV pushing, and it's time you stopped it. NoCal100 (talk) 23:01, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

That was not shown to be completely false, and the "precision" discussion was a red herring to begin with. I can agree that POV pushing is at the heart of this matter, that's why I'm strongly against cherry-picking a number of partisan sources and the drawing of dubious synthetic conclusions from highly skewed material. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The precision was not a red herring at all. I was asked what the term Samaria adds to the article, and I explained it was more precise than "West Bank". NoCal100 (talk) 15:42, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I doubt residents of Twentynine Palms use "Mojave Desert" as a mail address, despite the precision you say it adds. Note that despite your recommendation, the WP article is named "Twentynine Palms, California", not "Twentynine Palms, Mojave Desert". Arbitrary, country-specific, or made-up geographical labels add nothing but confusion. For instance, is Ma'ale Adumim in Samaria or not? Does it add precision to claim so, even though not even all its inhabitants might agree if they are "Samaritans" or "Judeans"?

You also avoided the question why English WP should begin to use Israel-specific terminology. Should we begin to refer to Germany as Germania too, because that happens to be the term the Israelis use? MeteorMaker (talk) 17:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I am also pretty sure that residents of Twentynine Palms don't use "Southern California" as a mail address, either, so I am not sure what this clumsy analogy is supposed to prove. "Samaria" is not arbitrary, nor made up, nor country specific.. NoCal100 (talk) 17:54, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

They use neither "Southern California, "Southeast California" nor "Mojave Desert", they use simply "California", which sort of shoots down your, you said it, clumsy analogy. If "Samaria" is the well-defined region you claim it to be, could you tell me if eg. Ma'ale Adumim is in it or not? If it's not Israel-specific, how come all non-Israeli reference works, news media, and government documents consistently use "West Bank"? MeteorMaker (talk) 18:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

They use neither my designation nor yours, so that's the end of that particular argument. Are you now suggesting the "California", which is what they use (alongside the actual town name and ZIP code) is more precise than "Southern California"? There are many sources which are non-Israeli which use the term - they have been presented here and on at leats 3 other articles, where you are engaged is this POV-pushing effort to remove mention of "Samaria" form wikipedia. NoCal100 (talk) 18:25, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

(<--Outdent)

(Outdent) You suggested that the city Twentynine Palms would gain precision by stopping referring to itself as a Californian town and starting calling itself a town in the Mojave Desert. Glad we agree now that not everything has to be sacrificed on the altar of precision. Myself, I'm perfectly happy with the current designation, just California.

Like I said on Talk:Samaria, half a dozen isolated examples does not constitute evidence of widespread use, something Wikipedia's guidelines require for a toponym to be presented as extant. You need either a direct quote from a reliable source that says "Samaria" is an accepted (non-Israeli) term for the modern region, or enough anecdotal evidence to satisfy Wikipedia's procedure for determining if a term enjoys widespread acceptance in English. Drawing your own conclusions from such a small sample is a violation of both WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. MeteorMaker (talk) 18:14, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

No, I suggested that the Mojave desert is a more precise definition of where Twentynine Palms is located, than "California" or "Southern California". That claim is true no matter how much you dance around it and bring up irrelevancies such as what the residents use for a mailing address. The claim I am making is that Israel removed some settlements in Samaria - and 8 reliable sources that make that exact claim have been provided. Time to move on. NoCal100 (talk) 21:55, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

You are entitled to your opinion, Wikipedia remains unimpressed. When the article Twentynine Palms, California is renamed to Twentynine Palms, Mojave Desert, let me know.

Eight cherry-picked and partisan sources claim that the area is called "Samaria", so what. I can show you a hundred that say it happened in Zionist-occupied Palestine. Under WP:UNDUE, sources that express extreme minority views are to be avoided. Maybe we should add eight of the ZOP sources in the name of WP:NPOV? MeteorMaker (talk) 00:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Indymedia and blogs? Please read WP:RS, as I don't think you have understood the concept of a reliable source. NoCal100 (talk) 00:59, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Try these then. As if finding fringe quotes were a problem in the Google age. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:44, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Are you under the illusion that anything found under books.google.com is automatically a reliable source? I thought I gave you some good advice - please read WP:RS, becuase you celary do not understand wiki policy with regards to sources. And which of these sources describe the removal of Isreali settlements from Samaria, which is the topic of discussion? NoCal100 (talk) 02:02, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I have few illusions. Feel free to specify what exact infraction of WP_RS each of these 43 books containg the phrase "Zionist-occupied Palestine" has incurred. If you insist we open the floodgate for controversial, fringe and POV terms, there is no shortage of sources with an anti-Israel bias that wil also have to be allowed in the name of neutrality. Which was my point. MeteorMaker (talk) 02:19, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

The sources used in this article are reliable sources that specifically refer to the 4 settlements removed from northern Samaria. Please review WP:RS, WP:NOR, and WP:POINT. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

And you review WP:UNDUE. Are you aware that "Samaria" is a small minority term even on English-language Israeli sites? MeteorMaker (talk) 02:57, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Huh? A "small minority term" for what? Jayjg ^(talk) 21:22, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Um, the northern part of the West Bank, Jayjg. If even you have to ask what the term means, NoCal's theory that using "Samaria" would add precision just got a huge hole shot in it. MeteorMaker (talk) 22:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Who says Samaria is a "small minority term for the northern part of the West Bank"? I'm pretty sure NoCal has been pointing out that the terms aren't co-terminous, hasn't he? Jayjg ^(talk) 23:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

He has asserted it, yes. Please read this section for some actual sources which suggest both that it does refer to the same thing, and on top of that, that it is also a minority or secondary terminology. --Nickhh (talk) 23:24, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Those sources don't "suggest" anything at all; instead, they show how those sources have referred to the biblical kingdom of Samaria. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:26, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

(Reset) My question in fact was about what is being added to the article by the use of the term "Samaria" as opposed to (or as well as) "northern West Bank", not the West Bank as a whole. I know you've explained what you see as the differences above, but to be honest it still seems to me that the two terms refer to pretty much the same area at the end of the day. This Ynet page also appears to put it that way. So the issue is, which is the more usual way of referring to this area in the English speaking word? However many times you and anyone else can point to a source that talks about "Samaria", I could dig up 100s more that simply say "northern West Bank" or "the northern part of the West Bank". So that's what the lead should say. Similarly in the UK the most accurate and common term used to describe the province of Northern Ireland is "Northern Ireland", not the "Six Counties" or "Ulster", both of which are nonetheless used frequently (especially the latter), and usually in order to make a political point. The term both locates it geographically, and is the correct administrative name. --Nickhh (talk) 16:23, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

No, there are no 'correct administrative name' for geographical regions. And to the extent you want to name the political district, the 'correct administrative name' is the District of Judea and Samaria. The two terms "norther West Bank" and "Samaria" have a lot of overlap, but they are not the same - as I noted above, the northern west bank also includes the northern Jordan valley, which is not in Samaria. Why use a wordy, imprecise term, when a single, more precise term will do the trick? NoCal100 (talk) 16:35, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Because it is a politically contentious and minority use term. Btw I am aware that we are not discussing an exact administrative area here - the Northern Ireland analogy was intended to raise the point about political vs standard terminology, not to make a direct comparison (despite the fact they both involve the word "northern" - that's why I capped one but not the other). I am also aware that the Israeli name for the wider administrative district is the combined phrase "Judea and Samaria". The issue here is - what is the standard description, in the majority of English language sources, for that area; and specifically how do most sources describe the broad part of that overall district which we are talking about here, where these settlements were sited. And the answer to the first point is "the West Bank", not "Judea and Samaria"; and to the second is "the northern West Bank", not "Samaria". The precision argument is indeed a red herring, although while we are here, I would add that it is somewhat dubious in any event. Covering both possible aspects of that argument, I cannot see that either term is more specific or definitive as to its precise "borders" than the other, or equally that the phrase "Samaria" would necessarily pin this down to a smaller area. I noted your observations about the differences, but equally I have pointed out a source that suggests they are used to describe exactly the same area. Also as it happens "Samaria region of the West Bank" is of course more wordy than "northern West Bank". --Nickhh (talk) 18:13, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

wikipedia is not censored . We do not avoid using precise terms just because some politically motivated POV_pushers are offended by them, or find them contentious. 8 different reliable sources used Samaria in this context - that is more than enough. NoCal100 (talk)

What on earth has this got to do with "censorship" or "POV pushing" (at least on this side of the argument) or being "offended"? I have never said that the word Samaria should never be used anywhere - the fact that it is sometimes used is interesting, relevant and notable, and needs mention and analysis in the appropriate place. I and others are simply asking that in the lead, when trying to briefly and accurately identify the area in question, WP uses the standard, neutral terminology used throughout the English-speaking world. Which also happens to be less wordy and no more or less precise than the secondary, minority terminology. This is about simple editorial standards, and the only people bringing politics or POV into this are those demanding the unnecessary insertion of politically loaded and non-standard terminology. We keep hearing and seeing that we have "x number of sources" that use Samaria. We all know these are out there, but no-one has ever explained why these sources should trump the 100s that say "northern West Bank". Presumably, if I cite 9 that do, I can restore the proper wording? Would that be "more than enough"? It's only one word, but there's a basic and important principle at stake here. --Nickhh (talk) 10:30, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

what this has to do with censorship is [[User:MeteorMaker|MeteorMaker]'s attempt to have the term removed from wikipedia - this article is but one of at least a dozen articles which he has systematically edited to remove the term. No one is asking that Samria "trump" the other terminology -if you'd bother to actually read the article, you'd see "The west bank" is right there, in the lead. But Samaria is a more precise geographical name, and was used in this context by 8 reliable sources, and that should not be censored just because some political POV-pushers find the name contentious. NoCal100 (talk) 15:12, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

"Samaria", being an extreme minority term [84] (apparently even in Israel [[85]]) adds nothing except POVness. Everybody agrees the majority term is the West Bank and that it doesn't suffer from that fault. Since we now have two selections of sources to choose from, one with partisan extreme minority terminology and one with mainstream, insisting on keeping the minority one is a violation of both WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, as well as of WP:NCGN. MeteorMaker (talk) 18:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Samaria adds geographic precision to the term"west Bank:, which is already in the article. This has been explained before. NoCal100 (talk) 19:36, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

In response to various points above -

i) I don't see MM asking for censorship of the term "Samaria" any more than I do. They are simply asking for accurate and appropriate use of standard terminology, as am I.

ii) I did of course "actually bother to read the article" a while ago (thanks for the rather bizarre suggestion that I have not) and am well aware that it uses the phrase "West Bank", right there in the lead. My point is very clearly that we do not need "Samaria" there as well, and that using it as well as "West Bank" is giving equivalence to a minority viewpoint.

iii) Please re(?)-read my comments above as to the purported "precision" of the phrase "Samaria". Yes you have tried to explain it, but counter-arguments have been provided which you have seen fit to ignore.

Anyway, this is all very silly, and would be amusing were it not so insidious. I'm off to the Truro article to discuss with Cornish nationalists whether that article's lead should describe it as a "city in Kernow". --Nickhh (talk) 21:59, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Here's something incredibly odd; you've removed 8 reliable sources describing the withdrawal from Samaria, and instead inserted MeteorMakers 3 sources describing the withdrawal from Gaza.[86] So, we were actually left with no sources describing the withdrawal from Samaria at all! Did you bother reading what MeteorMaker's citations actually said? Anyway, I've fixed all that, by restoring the reliable sources referring to the withdrawal from Samaria, along with MeteorMaker's sources describing the withdrawal from Gaza. Jayjg ^(talk) 22:27, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I have to confess I did not actually read into the specific sources cited by MM. I did not do this because I know 100s of them exist that simply refer to "(the northern) West Bank" as opposed to "Samaria" (I read them all the time, in every newspaper I pick up and in every book on my shelves), and assumed MM had picked up ones which reflected this reality. Prompted by your concern, I have now read the three specific ones cited here as at this version of the page. Note no4 refers to the "the pull out plan from Gaza and a few settlements on the West Bank". Note no5 talks about "the eviction of Jewish settlers from Gaza and the West Bank .. the West Bank settlements". Note no6 refers to "the four settlements in the northern West Bank". Naturally none of them describe the "withdrawal from Samaria". Now, are you taking the piss here, or just trying to get me to waste my time triple-checking the blindingly obvious? --Nickhh (talk) 22:52, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you read the quotes he used from those articles, though? None of them actually mention the West Bank, unless my eyes are deceiving me. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:04, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Hang on .. you accused me of not having read the sources at issue, but it was actually you who hadn't read them?! You're a funny guy. --Nickhh (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Err, no. I pointed out that the quotes used from them didn't support the claims made for them, nor even the claims made in the citations you and MeteorMaker were deleting. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:38, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

So yes, you hadn't read the sources themselves. Thank you for confirming. I on the other hand have read both the quotes/titles and the sources. And as I said, I'm now off to discuss the use of the phrases Kernow and Mercia with Cornish and Midlands nationalists in my own country. Cheers. --Nickhh (talk) 23:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Err, no, I didn't "confirm" any such thing. Please desist from deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors. Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:53, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

So you did read them then, but missed the content that was staring an observant reader in the face? Now I'm confused. Or are you merely playing the "I neither confirm nor deny" game? You're even funnier than I thought. Please, those Cornish nationalists are waiting. --Nickhh (talk) 23:58, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

MM brought quotations from sources that didn't address the claims he was trying to prove, nor address the statements made in the multiple sources he (and you) removed. The "observant reader" would note that fact. If you're confused, or tired of playing games, please feel free to edit Cornish or any other articles. I'm still getting lots done while you fill Talk: pages with this stuff. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:11, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

It's indeed a great time saver to just ignore the evidence. It's been shown very clearly, using established WP methodology and a multitude of reliable sources [87][88], that "West Bank" is the majority term by far, and that use of "Samaria/Judea" is restricted exclusively to Israel (with insignificant exceptions). Yet you keep insisting on introducing loaded minority terminology on Wikipedia. One can only wonder why. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Please show me where this "established WP methodology" is described. As for your theory, it is irrelevant and disproved. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure Jayjg, here is a link to Wikipedia's methodology for determining if a toponym is widely accepted. Incidentallt, I've put that link on a function key since you keep requesting it over and over and each time promptly forget about ever having seen it. It would also be interesting to hear you elaborate on how applying this procedure is "WP:SYNTH", particularly if the conclusion agrees entirely with numerous reliable sources [89][90]. MeteorMaker (talk) 08:37, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Please compare that guideline, which in any event has not been violated, with WP:NPOV: "The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one." Feel free to put that link on a function key. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:29, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It's strange that you believe WP:NPOV says minority terminology should be given equal prominence — in fact, it is pretty clear about avoiding bias. Your interpretation of WP:NPOV would also render WP:NCGN completely meaningless — then, any toponym, no matter how esoteric or nation-specific, could replace the accepted name in English. Using what has been shown to be an extreme minority term [91] is a clear violation of WP:NCGN, and that is even before its POV baggage is considered. MeteorMaker (talk) 15:17, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not in the least bit confused about anything, but am VERY tired of playing these games. I too might be getting other things done if I were not being dragged into absurd discussions here and being accused of not reading things by someone who, er, hasn't read them themselves. I and others have stated what should be obvious and also provided basic statistical evidence and links to substantive sources to back that up, and are now simply going round in circles. --Nickhh (talk) 09:13, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

ps: Cornwall is the name of the county (or Kernow if you want to make the political point), "Cornish" is the related adjective or the name of the little-used language.

Yeah, I'm tired of you playing games too, and I'm also tired of your failing to actually read the sources you keep reverting, and deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors. Your basic statistical evidence and links to substantive sources are interesting, but not particularly relevant to article content. Look, I'm not trying to add the term "Samaria" to articles; however, when an editor goes on a POV-rampage to remove the word, as an extension of his politics, well, I'm not really going to accept that as conforming with any Wikipedia policies. "Samaria", in this case, happens, among other things, to be the term the Israeli government used when it announced it was destroying the settlements. It's the official term, and it's used by lots of sources. Feel free to leave in "West Bank", which is already there. Jayjg ^(talk) 00:11, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

A new argument from Jayjg: The Israeli government uses "Judea and Samaria", ergo WP should too. The NPOV issues aside, this argument fails too for the simple reason that in online English-language Israeli gov't documents, "Judea and Samaria" is apparently a minority term compared to ""West Bank" [92].

I don't know if you are personally trying to add "Samaria" to articles, but when other editors do [93], you're always there as a part of the tag team.

Your well-documented contempt for WP policies, most recently expressed in your explicitly stated refusal above to accept substitution of universally accepted and neutral terms for terms that violate WP:NPOV, WP:UNDUE and WP:NCGN compounds the issue. This is becoming a concern. MeteorMaker (talk) 09:16, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

A new argument from Jayjg: The Israeli government uses "Judea and Samaria", ergo WP should too. No, I've never made that argument. I don't even refer to "Judea and Samaria", since that phrase is irrelevant to the discussion here. Please desist from deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors. Thanks. As for the rest, I have a great respect for Wikipedia policies, particularly WP:NPOV, which says

The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting verifiable perspectives on a topic as evidenced by reliable sources. The policy requires that where multiple or conflicting perspectives exist within a topic each should be presented fairly. None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth", in order that the various significant published viewpoints are made accessible to the reader, not just the most popular one.

And finally, regarding your false and pejorative comments about me, Comment on content, not on the contributor. Thanks. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Your words: ""Samaria", in this case, happens, among other things, to be the term the Israeli government used [...]. It's the official term, and it's used by lots of sources." If that was not intended as a justification for introducing "Samaria" on WP, what on earth was it?

It's strange that you believe WP:NPOV says minority terminology should be given equal prominence — in fact, it is pretty clear about avoiding bias. Your interpretation of WP:NPOV would also render WP:NCGN completely meaningless — then, any toponym, no matter how esoteric or nation-specific, could replace the accepted name in English.

And you accuse me of deliberately asserting false information in order to mislead, only a few lines below your attempt to cast my arguments in an anti-Semitic light. Your respect for WP policies manifests itself in confusing ways sometimes. MeteorMaker (talk) 14:46, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not playing any games here. I have also - despite what you seem to be accusing me of - read each and every one of the sources being cited in full, whether they were provided by you, MM, me or anyone else. I have not been attempting to mislead anyone by placing false information on a discussion page, and don't quite see what you are trying to prove by repeating that vague accusation. The statistics are highly relevant because they demonstrate what the standard, well understood terminology is - and that is the term we should be using here, especially in the lead, WITHOUT adding additional, obscure terminology on top of it. I agree totally with MM that what we are seeing here is contempt for the very policies that you tirelessly throw around at others. If this carries on, someone will eventually have to take this issue - and your behaviour - to the appropriate noticeboard or DR process. --Nickhh (talk) 09:30, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

You have asserted several times that I did not read MM's references; you even claimed I had "confirmed" that. That is deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors. Please desist. You, on the other hand, admitted not reading the sources; these are the words you posted: I have to confess I did not actually read into the specific sources cited by MM. Those are your words. Regarding what you consider to be "the standard, well understood terminology" is indeed in the lead, along with terminology used by a number of reliable sources, and which was used by Israel itself when announcing the withdrawal. Including both terminologies is the very essence of WP:NPOV; please don't try to intimidate me into abandoning WP:NPOV. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, you claimed that MM's sources only referred to the withdrawal from Gaza. I pointed out in response that they also explicitly referred to the withdrawal from the northern West Bank, and provided you with the quotes from within the sources confirming this. You then quite clearly tried to backtrack by slightly apologetically mumbling about how, well, the individual sentences pulled from the sources as a title for the footnote didn't, er, mention the West Bank. And then attempted to not-so-subtly shift the debate by continuing to refer to just the "quotes" rather than to the fuller content of the sources themselves. So you either didn't read the actual sources themselves (and were merely relying on the title quotes), or did look at them in more depth but didn't read them properly. Take your pick, I'm not bothered. It's nothing to do with me leaping to conclusions, it's all fairly transparent and logical. And you still haven't said outright "yes, I did read the sources". Sure you're not obliged to, but it would clear up the confusion (such as it is).

Yes you are correct that, four days ago, I did say - as the last diff confirms - that "I did not [initially]" read those particular sources (I didn't see the need at that point as I was not of course contesting them). However I immediately went on to explain, in the very same diff, that I had now after you raised concerns about them. If you wish me to explain to you how English tenses work, and how one can move from a state of not having done something to having done something ... well I really can't be bothered with that either. So who's actually asserting false (or at the very least misleading) information about who here? And there is no intimidation either - you are simply quite wrong. NPOV does not mean we must use fringe, political terminology as well as mainstream, neutral terminology, especially in the lead. To do that would be to give weight to that kind of terminology under the guise of NPOV, which is a very different thing and a very old trick. --Nickhh (talk) 09:05, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Yes, his sources only referred to the withdrawal from Gaza; I was, of course, referring to the quotes he provided. In a rather bizarre turn, he picked quotes from the sources that didn't actually describe what they were used as a citation for. That is the point I was making from the start, and the fact that you have consistently misconstrued that is either failing to assume good faith or deliberately asserting false information on a discussion page in order to mislead one or more editors. Take your pick, I'm not bothered. It's everything to do with your leaping to conclusions, it's all fairly transparent and logical. In any event, desist. As for the "weight" of your arguments, your attempts to to do an end-run around WP:NPOV in the guise of claim that a term that is used in literally hundreds of English-language sources is "fringe, political terminology" is perhaps not a "very old trick", but certainly a brazen and unabashed one. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Source(s) that explain the usage of the term Samaria

We need sources that discuss the use of the term, rather than having people provide examples of the term in used which they interpret as they like. Here's one that makes clear that the terms Judea and Samaria are Biblical designations and it goes on to describe their usage by settlers, attesting to the (dual) POV nature of the terms.

• ...settlement activity after the June War was also undertaken by Israelis committed to permanent retention of the West Bank and Gaza. These Israelis referred to the former territory by its Biblical designations of Judea and Samaria, terms employed for the deliberate purpose of asserting that the territorial claims of Jews predate those of Arabs, and also to create a subtle but important symbolic distinction between East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank. (In A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict By Mark A. Tessler, page 466)

Any others people would like to share again here? 18:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Here are a couple of quick ones that appear to demonstrate that it is a minor, secondary terminology. I'm sure there are more, from somewhat more scholarly sources, that would reinforce the above point about why exactly it is used by the minority that do employ it -

Palestine facts - not an RS, but noteworthy that a seemingly quite hardcore pro-occupation advocacy site acknowledges (unhappily) that the term West Bank is used "to the near total exclusion of any other"

The Israeli media - here Haaretz has to explain to its readers that Samaria is "the biblical name for the northern West Bank" when it quotes an extremist settler using the term.

The Israeli media again - noting that Judea & Samaria are "the biblical names", with Samaria simply meaning "the northern area [of the West Bank]". This page also implicitly acknowledges that "West Bank" is the primary designation.

The Israeli embassy in the UK - this letter (published yesterday) does not directly address the issue, but it does show that when attempting to address a non-Israeli audience directly, Israeli officials will refer to the "northern part of the West Bank" rather than "the Samaria region of the West Bank" (as of course do most independent sources)

--Nickhh (talk) 16:06, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Inspired by Nickhh's survey of Israeli sites, I tried the experiment to restrict the sites to .gov.il. The outcome was surprising to say the least:

• "Judea and Samaria" on .gov.il sites: 5,560 hits.
• "West Bank" on .gov.il sites: 6,940 hits.

Intrigued, I repeated the experiment with plain .il sites. The difference was even more marked:

• "Judea and Samaria" on .il sites: 29,600 hits.
• "West Bank" on .il sites: 260,000 hits.

Even on Israeli English-language sites, "Judea and Samaria" is the clear minority term, with only one ninth of the occurrences of the term "West Bank". I don't really know what to make of that. MeteorMaker (talk) 01:11, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

As noted on MeteorMaker's talk page, and referred to elsewhere as well ... I did a trawl of various books relating to the I-P conflict or the Middle East more generally that I happen to own, to do a rough count of the times each of the competing phrases are used and noted in the index as a direction for readers. I went through 15/16 books, limited to one per author. Those authors included journalists and academics, Israelis and non-Israelis, Arab writers etc. To be fair there weren't many representatives from what might loosely be called the "right-wing Israeli side". But they did include - Avi Shlaim, Albert Hourani, Ahron Bregman, Said Aburish, Jeremy Bowen, Jason Burke, Noam Chomsky (boo, hiss), Robert Fisk (again), Norman Finkelstein (sorry, another one), Thomas Friedman, David Hirst, Ilan Pappe (not another one), Tom Segev, Phil Rees, John Esposito, Edward Said (what am I thinking? Will I get away with this one?). Between them, the index entries for "West Bank" number roughly 382. There is a grand total of 1 entry for "Judea and Samaria" and 1 for "Samaria". Amusingly perhaps, both these latter are in Chomsky's Fateful Triangle, and are simple redirects, telling readers to "see West Bank". Avi Shlaim's The Iron Wall is the biggest single hitter, with 77-0 in favour of "West Bank". Now, when writers and publishers appear to have this level of consensus that the primary terminology is "West Bank", with "Samaria" being a minority fringe description that can be ignored and/or subsumed within it - on top of the above examples from the Israeli media and government, and the online stats - who are we WP editors to recast all that?--Nickhh (talk) 10:41, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

ps: David Hirst's The Gun and the Olive Branch also asserts that the terms "Judea" and "Samaria" were revived/pushed by Menachem Begin as a replacement for the description "West Bank", with the explicit political purpose of laying claim to the land. The footnotes refer to media reports in Time and Haaretz in 1977. It obviously didn't catch on in the mainstream rest of the world --Nickhh (talk) 10:48, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

I would think that settles it (after a very long word battle). Nickhh is simply right. You can conduct similar tests and they'll give the same result. Haaretz, for instance, is considered the 'reference journal' for Israel's news. Its site has a search machine. Type in 'Samaria'. You'll get 3 results (and 2 of them obvious quotes). Type in Judea. 1 Result. Try West Bank: 43. That's 10 times more than the combined result of 'Samaria' and 'Judea'. Try it in New York Times and search the "NYT Archives since 1981". You get 442 for Samaria and 39.558 for West Bank. That's nearly a 100 times more. You try just 'Past year' and the result is 6 against 1096 (182 times more). And, oh yes, nearly every time when the NYT uses the word 'Judea and Samaria' they add 'biblical' or they explain that it refers to the West Bank or it is put in quotation marks for being a quote (or it refers to a landscape in Crete). Still any doubt? --Ilyacadiz (talk) 22:15, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Ha'aretz is a the most popular Israeli newspaper among left-leaning English speakers, because that is its own political position (and, for that matter, the political position of The New York Times). That doesn't make it Israel's "reference journal"; several quite respectable Israeli newspapers have significantly larger readerships, and The Jerusalem Post occupies essentially the same position as Ha'aretz among centrist and right-leaning English speakers. Type the term "Samaria" into The Jerusalem Post's search engine, and you'll get 12,410 results. Moreover, had you read the discussions above, you would have noted that we were not discussing the phrase "Judea and Samaria", but rather the term "Samaria", and we weren't discussing using only one term, but rather having both, in line with WP:NPOV. I don't think there is "any doubt" that NPOV requires multiple views. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:19, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Samaria on its own is used even less frequently than "Judea and Samaria", which at least has quasi-official status as the occupier's administrative terminology. You really haven't brought any evidence here that carries the same weight as that presented above. I have also noted that you and everyone else reverting Samaria back into the lead have studiously avoided bringing any information or comment to this section at all, until now. As for using both Samaria and northern West Bank, this is (for reasons noted above) a kind of NPOV con. Just because we have the mainstream terminology (West Bank) doesn't mean we can then bung any fringe/non-standard terminology on top as well. NPOV (especially when considered alongside WP:UNDUE) means - use the standard, consensus and neutral wording or interpretation, and explain in the appropriate place about any alternatives. --Nickhh (talk) 09:11, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

ps: put "West Bank" into the Post's search engine and you get 20,464. Which is more, although admittedly not quite as resoundingly more as all the other publications noted above. For info, "Judea and Samaria" combined gets 6,251. I would also add that online searches like this of course bring up every instance where the word or phrase is used, without clarifying in what context (eg they could all be saying "this is a silly word"). Book index searches in a way are more interesting, because they are revealing a kind of editorial ranking - ie they are identifying what the publisher sees as the main, defining term, and what they expect the average reader to search under. --Nickhh (talk) 09:21, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that "West Bank" is more commonly used than "Samaria"? Even if true, so what? WP:NPOV includes all views, not just the most popular. Please review that policy well. And several thousand uses of a term is not "fringe". Jayjg ^(talk) 02:45, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

This dispute is not about which "views to include," but which term to use in Wikipedia's neutral voice. Questions of this kind are indeed decided by which term is most "popular," i.e., which term is broadly accepted by the vast majority of reliable sources.--G-Dett (talk) 17:34, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:NCGN, WP uses the commonly accepted English toponyms. It has been shown conclusively that "Samaria" is fringe terminology outside Israel (and a simple Google check indicates it's a clear minority term even inside Israel [94]). To repeat myself, it's also strange that you believe WP:NPOV says minority terminology should be given equal prominence — in fact, it is pretty clear about avoiding bias. Your interpretation of WP:NPOV would also render WP:NCGN completely meaningless — then, any toponym, no matter how esoteric or nation-specific, could replace any accepted name in English.

Also, you have not presented "several thousand" uses of the term "Samaria" outside Israel. If we deduce the Israeli, historical, and misconstrued ones, we are left with at most half a dozen bona fide instances, and as you have found, they are exceedingly hard to come by. I remind you, in order to support your hypothesis, you need reliable sources that explicitly state that the term is widely used by others than Israelis in English . MeteorMaker (talk) 09:15, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

I see this article has been the subject of a major dispute lately, and would like to make a suggestion. The Israeli administrative district under whose jurisprudence the settlements in question fall is called Judea and Samaria. Therefore, I am surprised to see that this wikilink does not appear in this article. I suggest explaining this in the lead. After that, we can go on to use the term West Bank per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NCGN. -- Nudve (talk) 07:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hi Nudve, the reason Judea and Samaria don't appear in the article is that they are WP:POV denominations and don't add any information. The article states that there are settlements in a region known to most of the word as the West Bank. What some other editors want to include is that this part of the West Bank is also known by a minority by its biblical name of Samaria. While the former has quite a bit to do with the article topic (Israeli settlement), the later does not.

For those who are really interested in terminology, the designation Judea and Samaria is in the intro of the article on the West Bank, where it makes more sense (in that article it even described as "policitised"). It has, however, no place in an article on settlements.

Cheers, pedrito - talk - 04.12.2008 08:51

As Pedrito says, the West Bank article itself does pretty quickly say "also known as J&S" (correctly, since context is given), so I think that point is covered there. Speaking more generally I'm more than happy that at some point in this article, we talk about how the Israeli government has (sometimes, not always as it happens) described the withdrawal as being from "Samaria" (some of the maps do say this I think). --Nickhh (talk) 09:36, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Judea and Samaria is the official Israeli name of the district. This is a fact, not a POV. It is Judea and Samaria that is officially governed by Israeli martial law, and it is the Chief of the Israeli Central Command who is authorized by law to govern it and the settlements. I can't see how this is irrelevant. -- Nudve (talk) 16:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

True, but anything I've ever read suggests that the term was deliberately re-introduced, possibly in part by Begin, as part of a deliberate effort to make a claim on the land for Israel. In addition of course international law does not consider the land to be part of Israel proper, and nor is the terminology widely used outside Israel. So yes it's a fact that this is the name of an administrative district (according to the occupying power of course) which covers more or less the same area as "the West Bank", but it's also a POV term in its own way at the same time. Anyway as for whether we have it here or not, I'm not sure it's needed - the broader West Bank vs J&S issue is in my view better covered in those respective articles (which wiki-link to each other I believe), and elsewhere WP should generally use the majority terminology "West Bank" when talking about the wider area. The issue here is a more specific one, about how to refer the northern parts of the region in the lead. To me this seems rather simple (especially since "Samaria" alone, as opposed to the combined term, doesn't even have official status in Israeli terminology as far as I'm aware), but of course others don't agree. Thanks for trying to come up with something, but tbh I can only see it leading to more dispute not less. --Nickhh (talk) 16:52, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

It is true that Israel did make a very conscious attempt to rename the region, and it is true that the attempt mostly failed. However, the Israeli POV is relevant here, since those settlements are Israeli. What I'm suggesting is a sentence along the lines of "The settlements in the West Bank fall under the jurisdiction of the Judea and Samaria district (Judea refers to the part south of Jerusalem and Samaria refers to the part north of Jerusalem)". With that addition anything later in the article can then "safely" say "northern West Bank" or such. -- Nudve (talk) 17:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Nickhh's compromise

I like it. Can we leave it at this? Cheers, pedrito - talk - 04.12.2008 14:01

I like it too (obviously .. although I never like to suggest that countries speak with one voice, especially the voice of their government). Now, that aside, can the obsessive reverters actually address both the balance of sources point above, and either Nudve's or my compromise suggestion rather than just continuing to edit war over this one word? I am really not sure how "Samaria in the [northern] West Bank" is a genuine compromise (nor has it ever been presented as such until now), or NPOV, simply on the basis that it includes both words. As with saying "Birmingham is a city in Mercia, in the Midlands", it's just doubling up as well as giving equivalence to a minority terminology. --Nickhh (talk) 15:10, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Why does anyone bother? Another member of the tag team has resurfaced to join in the revert war, claiming that 20,000+ sources are suddenly "not relevant", without bothering to come and explain on what basis they believe that. So, the minority of sources that use the phrase Samaria are magically relevant, while the vast majority that very explicitly do not - and do not for a reason - are not. On this basis we can rename the London article Londinium. The fact that 20m sources will use "London" and not "Londinium" is not relevant of course. Now I get it. --Nickhh (talk) 17:37, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Nick on your comment (related to changed I've just reverted) saying you have a zillion references that DON'T say something is... well... rather meaningless. It's like the scientific proof, I have seen a million sheep, all of them were white, therefore all sheep are white. When someone comes to you with some black sheep, saying "yes, but I see millions of white sheep, so black sheep don't exist!" it's just logically flawed. Now this situation is a little different (as some editors including myslef have had long discussion about elsewhere) because we're not quite talking about the same thing. One group of editors is saying look at those these white goats! And another group is saying "black sheep are a real type of sheep". Mean time one group removed all references to black sheep (while making arguments about goats) and other edits naturally revert the passages so statements saying "some sheep are black" are not deleted from Wikipedia. This is perhaps not the right place for a full on discussion on Samaria (yet again) but... there are plent of discussions on this and so far references have always been produced when asked and it has only been one editor (neither of you two) who has refused to listen to reason on this and kept moving the goal posts. Please lets not waste time on debates that have already been had? All the best (appologiesyou updated here before I could post my comment) Oboler (talk) 17:40, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Incidently I do think 13 minutes to comment on talk is a reasonable response time. It shows a lack of good faith for you to complain 10 minute after a revert that there is no discussion on talk. That's to say nothing of your insinuations. At least you didn't revert... please respond here first (now that the comment is posted). Also please note that the evidence does clearly show the term being used internationally. This is a key part of what the references and related discussion resolved. Oboler (talk) 17:47, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) I well understand the fallacy of simply asserting that because there are 1000s of instances where something is not observed, that it does not exist (subject to what David Hume might have to say). But as you seem to half-acknowledge this is really irrelevant here - we know that sources exist which use the term "Samaria" instead of "northern West Bank" to describe more or less the same region. I have never denied this, and I haven't see anyone else do it either. The point is that they are a clear minority of the sources by quite some way - the majority by far use the second phrase. Hence it is the standard, mainstream neutral term. Hence it should be the simple term used in the lead. The minority language can be referred to elsewhere (as per my compromise proposal)

I am also aware of the related fallacy which assumes that because a source avoids a certain phrase or description on one or more occasions, we can infer that the source would never use that term. So when someone describes London as "a big city", we could not infer that they do not also think London is an "crowded city", purely on the basis that they happened not to mention it on this occasion. But this is not relevant either, because with the debate here, we are talking about direct and contradictory alternatives, one of which is politically loaded and used by a minority, but actively avoided by the majority. We can for example be sure that any source for information on the UK's capital which describes it as a "big city" does not think that it is a "small city".

You also write and edit as if this debate has been settled. The length of this talk page surely makes clear that this assertion falls under the headings "optimism" and/or "misplaced claim of triumph"? As for your point about giving you time to write on talk - from where I am sitting I of course had no idea whether you were going to do that or not, or that you were in the middle of writing a comment, such that if I waited 13 minutes it would suddenly appear. Responding to two new, separate compromise proposals on talk before making the same old revert would seem to have been the easier way forward. --Nickhh (talk) 18:12, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't wish to get embroiled in this lame edit war, but if I may - an observation: At least part of the problem, it seems, is the cuastic editing style and attitidue displayed by some of the participants. As far as I can tell, there are two groups of editors here, one of them (Meteor Maker, Nickhh, Pedrito) advocating for removal of Samaria, and another group (Jayjg, Oboler, Nocal100, Canadian Monkey) advocating for keeping it. Both sides have engaged in an on-going edit war - so it is not helpful, Nickhh, to refer to one side as 'obsessive reverters' or 'members of the tag team ', when the other side, yourself included, has done excatly the same. Mr. Hicks The III (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I used those phrases out of frustration that three or four separate editors had come in and simply reverted and disappeared again without even responding to additional statistics placed on the talk page, or more recently to the two different compromise proposals that I and another editor put up today. I'm aware there is reverting taking place on both "sides". However since daylight over here (and until Oboler finally spoke up after I expressed that frustration), none of those on the other "side" have even opened their mouths on the talk page. It is a lame edit war, but as usual the smaller the issue, the less each side feels inclined to let the other "get away with it". And having said that, although it is only one word, it is nonetheless a loaded word in the context.--Nickhh (talk) 19:09, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Oddly enough, you didn't get frustrated when Pedro did exactly that, "simply reverted and disappeared again". Jayjg ^(talk) 02:46, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Surprisingly enough, I am far less likely to get over-excited when the editor agrees with me. Human nature I guess, for better or worse. Although more importantly of course - and this is what really irks me - at that point there was no compromise proposal waiting for a response on the talk page (in furtherance of which I had actually added the word Samaria to the article, albeit further down), as there was yesterday when a succession of editors reverted the lead paragraph. Anyway I give in, this is way too dull and too much of a waste of time (unfortunately as it turned out I have had too much of that over the last couple of days). I cede this page to the Hasbara committee, and to the line of the Israeli government. I mean, screw what everyone else in the rest of the world (including Israeli academics and media, and even the government itself half the time) calls this region - which is not part of Israel of course - by a margin of 1000s. What do we care about that? --Nickhh (talk) 08:54, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

so, you are not in fact frustrated by the behaviour of editors who revert and disappear (in fact, you welcome such actions when it furthers your agenda), you are frustrated by your inability to get your favored version into the article, which is quite a different matter. Numerous example of Israeli academics using the term have been shown, in academic publications of prestigious American and British universities, only to be discounted by MetoerMaker on the grounds of their author's ethnicity. It is distasteful, as is your remark regarding "Hasbara committee". I don't see anyone alleging that you are doing this on behalf of the PLO's propaganda efforts, so I wonder why you would accuse your opponents of something like that. Canadian Monkey (talk) 18:57, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Is it the position of Nocal100, Jayjg, Oboler CM et al that Samaria is not a loaded term? Or is that even if it is loaded, Wikipedia should use it as long as some RSs use it?--G-Dett (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello, count me in. Of course it's loaded, just as "Israel" is a loaded word and often referred to as "the Zionist Entity" by some. And the word "Palestine" is loaded as well, as there is some confusion generated between the British Mandate for (Arab and Jewish) Palestine & the non-yet existent country presumably named "Palestine." There is, however, officially an Israel, even if the Arab countries in the region do not want to recognize it. When we are talking about Israeli settlements, we are not talking about Israeli settlements in Palestine, but about Israeli settlements in Israeli territory referred to specifically & officially as Samaria & Judea. We are not here to chose the most popular usage, but the most accurate one. Tundrabuggy (talk) 04:06, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

"Israel", a loaded word? Perhaps if prefixed by "Eretz" or "Zionist", but on its own, it's as neutral as it gets, just like "West Bank", and the term news media have chosen. The opinion that the West Bank is Israeli territory (and hence theirs to decide what to call) is neither neutral nor factually correct. MeteorMaker (talk) 07:40, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Tundrabuggy, your position seems to be that "Samaria" is the best term because in your view the settlements are built on "Israeli territory" and the official Israeli term for this territory is "Samaria." Your position, in short, tends to support MeteorMaker's argument that the term is loaded in a way that makes it inappropriate for Wikipedia's neutral voice.

That said, I take your point that almost any term will be seen as loaded by some parties. Terms like "Israel" and the "West Bank," however, are widely seen as neutral, and are used by the overwhelming majority of reliable sources. At the other extreme are terms like "Zionist entity," which almost no reliable sources touch with a ten-foot pole. In the middle are terms like "Judea," "Samaria," and "Palestine" (for present-day West Bank, Gaza, and sometimes East Jerusalem). Yes, Jay and others have dug up sources using the term "Samaria" for the northern West Bank, and inserted as many of these as possible into the article in order to buttress the case for using this term in Wikipedia's neutral voice. Editors who disagree with your view that the settlements are built in "Israeli territory" could easily dig up an equal number of reliable sources describing "Israeli settlements in Palestine," and start edit-warring to use the term "Palestine" for the occupied territories in Wikipedia's neutral voice. Their rationale would be identical to yours, and equally wrong-headed.

"Israel" and the "West Bank" are the widely accepted terms. "Judea," "Samaria," and "Palestine" are not.--G-Dett (talk) 16:42, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting "West Bank" be removed. In this case, however, "Samaria" reflects a moderately widely used term that also happens to reflect the terminology used in the official government statements regarding the withdrawal. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that the minority POV terminology ("Samaria") was used in Israeli government statements regarding the withdrawal. What terminology was used in the Palestinian government statements?--G-Dett (talk) 03:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the Israeli government is currently the government legally in charge of the territories, pending a final resolution/peace treaty etc. Jayjg ^(talk) 03:52, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Good. Is it your position that NPOV terminology on Wikipedia is set by the party "in charge of" a disputed or occupied territory?--G-Dett (talk) 03:58, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

NPOV is set by Wikipedia's NPOV policy, which insists that multiple views be sought. The terminology here hasn't been "set" by the party that controls the territory; rather, the article uses multiple terms, per NPOV. And I haven't been trying to insert these terms into all sorts of articles; rather, in the half dozen or so articles where they were already found, I objected to the attempts of an SPA to purge Wikipedia of them based on faulty original research and blatant political POV. And finally, if you want to compare it to the term "Palestine", when we're down to a half dozen or so articles using the term "Palestine" on Wikipedia, as opposed to the several thousand or so that link to it now, then we'll be discussing a comparable situation. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your broader thoughts and feelings; right now, however, I'm just trying to understand why we should use one "alternative name" and not the other, one "government terminology" and not the other. You say the reason is that "the Israeli government is currently the government legally in charge of the territories." What I want to know is why you think our NPOV terminology should be a function of who is "in charge of the territories."--G-Dett (talk) 04:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

My argument is an argument in full, with all of its details and nuances, set in a very specific context. I'm not really planning to co-operate with your attempts to reduce a complex, contextual argument to a simplified caricature. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:15, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I asked you why NPOV should prefer one vocabulary to another; you responded succinctly, saying that your preferred vocabulary was used by the party "in charge." I'm asking you to elaborate on that.--G-Dett (talk) 04:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Who said we should "prefer one vocabulary to another"? That appears to be your argument. When did I say my "preferred vocabulary was used by the party "in charge""? I presented a complex, contextual, nuanced argument. I won't co-operate with your straw manning it. Jayjg ^(talk) 04:21, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's where I asked you why we should offer one side's "alternate term" but not the other's. Here's where you responded by saying we should prefer the terminology of "the country that controls the territory." I won't cooperate with your pretending to have been "strawmanned" when you haven't. If you think your position needs clarifying, then clarify it.--G-Dett (talk) 07:29, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

I've explained my views quite clearly here. My argument is an argument in full, with all of its details and nuances, set in a very specific context. I'm not really planning to co-operate with your attempts to reduce a complex, contextual argument to a simplified caricature. Jayjg ^(talk) 02:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)