I do not believe this article should cite the number of Israelis living the West Bank and those in Gaza who "lead lives similar to other Jewish Israelis" without mentioning that 3.2 million Palestinians (this number is exaggerated, there are a bit more then 2 million) also live in the West Bank and Gaza - even though they are not Israeli citizens and even though the Occupied Territories are not legally part of Israel. You can't have it both ways. Either erase mention of Israelis living in the OT or include mention of the Palestinians living in the OT. This gross editorial bias is emblematic of Zionist efforts to negate and erase the existence of Palestinians since the establishment of the Jewish state. Alberuni 00:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Palestinians also pay taxes into Israeli coffers, work in its cities, receive Israeli government services, are subject to Israeli military courts, etc. BTW, Israelis living in the USA do serve in the Israeli military. Your arguments against recognizing the presence of Palestinians in the OT, unsurprisingly, do not hold water. If there are "hundreds of thousands" (~10% of the population? doubtful) of foreign workers in Israel, that should be mentioned. Whatever wrongs you think have been done to the "Jewish nation," spewing Zionist propaganda throughout Wikipedia pages only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about the "Jews". You should heed your own advice - although I doubt you (plural) have the ability to perceive your arrogance and deep bias. And so the conflict continues. Alberuni 01:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Since the Oslo accords the vast majority of Palestinians are under Palestinian administration, not Israeli. They do not fall under Israeli civil administration since, as you yourself have pointed out, they are not Israeli citizens. A brief perusal of demographics sections in other articles on nations shows that they do not discuss the demographics of non-citizens; this appears to be the Wikipedia standard. Regarding your next claim, of course I "recognize the presence of Palestinians" in the territories; how could I not? However, their demographics are discussed in the relevant articles, those of the territories themselves. The point of this section in the article is not "recognition" of Palestinians, but a description of the demographics of Israelis; this is exactly what I meant when I objected to the injecting a political agenda into a section which does not warrant it. Regarding the number of foreign workers in Israel, at the end of 1995, the ICBS counted a total (legal and illegal) of 120,000 foreign workers. The State Comptroller's Office placed the total number at 172,000. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimated the total to be 190,000. Unofficial sources put the total at 250,000 (then), and the number is estimated at well over 300,000 today. In 2003 alone Israel deported 50,000 illegal foreign workers, and foreign workers are currently estimated to comprise around 6% of the Israeli workforce (your 10% number was a little high). This does not include tens of thousands of other foreign nationals who work in Israel as embassy staff, U.N. staff, NGO staff, volunteers, etc. In closing, I strongly recommend avoiding ad hominem comments, and I am baffled as to why you refer to me as "pural". Jayjg 02:30, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think you are injecting a grossly biased political agenda in this section by stubbornly maintaining a description of 7500 extremist settlers living in militarily occupied Gaza surrounded by 1.2 million disenfranchised (and unmentioned) Palestinian refugees as "leading lives similar to other Jewish Israelis". Perhaps there's more ironic and symbolic truth to that description than you recognize. Alberuni 02:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's not my text, so I haven't "injected" a "a grossly biased political agenda" into anything. This is an accusation that you and HistoryBuffEr have continuously and erroneously made; that by defending a text written mostly by others, a text that has been arrived at by lengthy and sometimes painful negotiation, I have somehow become the creator of that text, and therefore responsible for injecting "bias" into the article. In addition, I'm not particularly wedded to that specific wording, but note that you did not attempt to modify the sentence in question, but rather added all sorts of other irrelevant information. In any event, why do you think it is inaccurate? Also, you haven't answered my question; in what way am I "plural"? Jayjg 03:07, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
They do not. Also, S/he said plural not "pural," which I understood to mean 'generic you' or something to that effect. At any rate, these comments are totally inappropriate, I urge Alebruni to cease from such rhetorical exclamations — what is the point anyway, these innuendoes only take away from his or her argument. I do not object to the number of Palestinians being mentioned. The Occupied Territories are in the news enough (compared to, let say, Western Sahara), so it may be beneficial to have the Palestinian inhabitants of The Territories noted 'precisely' in the Israel article — at the same time, I do not see it as essential since it is, as mentioned, only a click away. I do, however, see a different cannot have it both ways problematic: if we mention the 7500 Israelis living -outside the country- in the Gaza Strip, for example, why not mention the (appreciable) number of Israelis who live in the United States, et cetera. True, it is contiguous and militarily occupied, but it is also outside Israeli territory. Finally, that They are subject to Israeli law and lead lives similar to other Jewish Israelis line is silliness, at best. I am in favour of it being deleted. El_C
Oh? Do fill me in, please. Back to your preceding message, fair enough (especially the taxes), but there are Israelis living abroad who do recieve Israeli government services, I know some in-person — granted, not to the same extent as those in The Territories, but (and this leads me towards the 'lead similar lives' line) the latter also recieve government services which are very different from the average Israeli (very costly, highly specialized security expenses, for example). Israelis in the Territories do not lead similar lives as the average Israeli, they lead very different lives by virtue of living in the midst of and surrounded by a much larger hostile population. We can go into details into how the lives of the average Israeli in The Territories differ (dramatically) from that of the average Israeli in Israel, but it should be clearly evident upon an even cursory examination, I would think (at any rate, I could get into details if needs be). At the event, it remains silly at the best, and intellectually dishonest and even propagandist, at worse. To reiterate, I find it to be an inappropriate closing sentence for that section specifically, and a highly questionable (I argue, incorrect) claim, in general. El_C
Would it be possible to put the country profile and some of the other boxes in {{thingies}}? The Hebrew and Arabic characters in them makes it hard for me to edit without accidentally destroying those characters.
Palestine-info 14:50, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Fine.
I do not believe this article should cite the number of Israelis living the West Bank and those in Gaza who "lead lives similar to other Jewish Israelis" without mentioning that 3.2 million Palestinians (this number is exaggerated, there are a bit more then 2 million) also live in the West Bank and Gaza - even though they are not Israeli citizens and even though the Occupied Territories are not legally part of Israel. You can't have it both ways. Either erase mention of Israelis living in the OT or include mention of the Palestinians living in the OT. This gross editorial bias is emblematic of Zionist efforts to negate and erase the existence of Palestinians since the establishment of the Jewish state. Alberuni 00:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Palestinians also pay taxes into Israeli coffers, work in its cities, receive Israeli government services, are subject to Israeli military courts, etc. BTW, Israelis living in the USA do serve in the Israeli military. Your arguments against recognizing the presence of Palestinians in the OT, unsurprisingly, do not hold water. If there are "hundreds of thousands" (~10% of the population? doubtful) of foreign workers in Israel, that should be mentioned. Whatever wrongs you think have been done to the "Jewish nation," spewing Zionist propaganda throughout Wikipedia pages only serves to perpetuate negative stereotypes about the "Jews". You should heed your own advice - although I doubt you (plural) have the ability to perceive your arrogance and deep bias. And so the conflict continues. Alberuni 01:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Since the Oslo accords the vast majority of Palestinians are under Palestinian administration, not Israeli. They do not fall under Israeli civil administration since, as you yourself have pointed out, they are not Israeli citizens. A brief perusal of demographics sections in other articles on nations shows that they do not discuss the demographics of non-citizens; this appears to be the Wikipedia standard. Regarding your next claim, of course I "recognize the presence of Palestinians" in the territories; how could I not? However, their demographics are discussed in the relevant articles, those of the territories themselves. The point of this section in the article is not "recognition" of Palestinians, but a description of the demographics of Israelis; this is exactly what I meant when I objected to the injecting a political agenda into a section which does not warrant it. Regarding the number of foreign workers in Israel, at the end of 1995, the ICBS counted a total (legal and illegal) of 120,000 foreign workers. The State Comptroller's Office placed the total number at 172,000. The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs estimated the total to be 190,000. Unofficial sources put the total at 250,000 (then), and the number is estimated at well over 300,000 today. In 2003 alone Israel deported 50,000 illegal foreign workers, and foreign workers are currently estimated to comprise around 6% of the Israeli workforce (your 10% number was a little high). This does not include tens of thousands of other foreign nationals who work in Israel as embassy staff, U.N. staff, NGO staff, volunteers, etc. In closing, I strongly recommend avoiding ad hominem comments, and I am baffled as to why you refer to me as "pural". Jayjg 02:30, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I think you are injecting a grossly biased political agenda in this section by stubbornly maintaining a description of 7500 extremist settlers living in militarily occupied Gaza surrounded by 1.2 million disenfranchised (and unmentioned) Palestinian refugees as "leading lives similar to other Jewish Israelis". Perhaps there's more ironic and symbolic truth to that description than you recognize. Alberuni 02:54, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
That's not my text, so I haven't "injected" a "a grossly biased political agenda" into anything. This is an accusation that you and HistoryBuffEr have continuously and erroneously made; that by defending a text written mostly by others, a text that has been arrived at by lengthy and sometimes painful negotiation, I have somehow become the creator of that text, and therefore responsible for injecting "bias" into the article. In addition, I'm not particularly wedded to that specific wording, but note that you did not attempt to modify the sentence in question, but rather added all sorts of other irrelevant information. In any event, why do you think it is inaccurate? Also, you haven't answered my question; in what way am I "plural"? Jayjg 03:07, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
They do not. Also, S/he said plural not "pural," which I understood to mean 'generic you' or something to that effect. At any rate, these comments are totally inappropriate, I urge Alebruni to cease from such rhetorical exclamations — what is the point anyway, these innuendoes only take away from his or her argument. I do not object to the number of Palestinians being mentioned. The Occupied Territories are in the news enough (compared to, let say, Western Sahara), so it may be beneficial to have the Palestinian inhabitants of The Territories noted 'precisely' in the Israel article — at the same time, I do not see it as essential since it is, as mentioned, only a click away. I do, however, see a different cannot have it both ways problematic: if we mention the 7500 Israelis living -outside the country- in the Gaza Strip, for example, why not mention the (appreciable) number of Israelis who live in the United States, et cetera. True, it is contiguous and militarily occupied, but it is also outside Israeli territory. Finally, that They are subject to Israeli law and lead lives similar to other Jewish Israelis line is silliness, at best. I am in favour of it being deleted. El_C
Oh? Do fill me in, please. Back to your preceding message, fair enough (especially the taxes), but there are Israelis living abroad who do recieve Israeli government services, I know some in-person — granted, not to the same extent as those in The Territories, but (and this leads me towards the 'lead similar lives' line) the latter also recieve government services which are very different from the average Israeli (very costly, highly specialized security expenses, for example). Israelis in the Territories do not lead similar lives as the average Israeli, they lead very different lives by virtue of living in the midst of and surrounded by a much larger hostile population. We can go into details into how the lives of the average Israeli in The Territories differ (dramatically) from that of the average Israeli in Israel, but it should be clearly evident upon an even cursory examination, I would think (at any rate, I could get into details if needs be). At the event, it remains silly at the best, and intellectually dishonest and even propagandist, at worse. To reiterate, I find it to be an inappropriate closing sentence for that section specifically, and a highly questionable (I argue, incorrect) claim, in general. El_C
Would it be possible to put the country profile and some of the other boxes in {{thingies}}? The Hebrew and Arabic characters in them makes it hard for me to edit without accidentally destroying those characters.
Palestine-info 14:50, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Fine.