Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Israel

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 17:40, 30 September 2007.

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Israel

(Self-nomination) This article has undergone a heck of a lot of changes since the beginning of July and I am now confident the article is ready for its close-up. It meets every criteria for featured article status (I know this sounds self-promoting, but I have to say it), detailing the State of Israel and its history, government, economy, demographics, and culture (and more). The simages complement the written content of the article as they depict a variety of aspects of Israel. Israel evokes a few hot-button issues in some parts of the world today, but this article has been able to settle down and largely remain quiet (albeit not without tribulation along the way). The prose is great compelling astronomically superb and deserves to be among the ranks of such iconic articles as exploding whale. -- tariqabjotu 21:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I have wasted hours – and most certainly days – of my life over the past few months attempting to bring this article up to featured status. I have endured frivolous attacks of POV, claims of ownership, and repetitive insults on my writing abilities – all while I myself have graciously undid the mistakes of others and otherwise did my best to contribute to the article. But I'm sick and tired of this now. I'm no Israeli, no Palestinian, no Arab, and no Jew. I'm not here for anybody or anything, no cause expect to prove that some of the most controversial articles on Wikipedia can also become some of the best. But alas, this is all a pipe dream. Indeed, this article has improved as a result of many good-faith comments here, but I can no longer support an article that has been, and I'm sure will continually be, assaulted by those whose idea of a good article amounts only to one that promotes their agenda. I have better things to do with my life than wrangle with people who think everyone but them is biased. Shalom. -- tariqabjotu 05:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Fewer people than you imagine think everyone other than themselves is biased, Tariq. But apparently more people than I imagine consider all of their actions in undoing the efforts of others to have been done graciously. Tegwarrior 15:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't even know what I'm talking about, Teg. I was not talking about reverting other people; I was talking about fixing grammar and citation errors. You're beginning to cross the line between a mere POV warrior and a troll; at this point, the prospect of anyone taking you seriously is infinitesimally small. -- tariqabjotu 15:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

So you want to be credited for graciously correcting grammar and citation errors, with no mind paid to concurrent instances of your revert-happy episodes? I must admit that I tend to be the hero of all the stories I tell, too. ;-) Tegwarrior 17:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks good. Comments on what I've read so far:

• The numerous links in the lead following the mention of "overall human development" are unecessary. Two of those links actually talk about economic freedom.
• Jews living in the Diaspora have aspired over the ages to return to the Land of Israel and Zion. The link to Zion seems to indicate that it refers to the Land of Israel. Is it uncessary to include both, or am I missing some subtle distinction?
• Arab opposition to the plan culminated in the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of the Jewish defense organization known as the Haganah, from which the Irgun and Lehi split off. It reads as if Arab opposition culminated in the formation of Jewish defense groups; consider rewording.
• In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the Palestine Liberation Organization launched terror attacks against the northern part of Israel. The wikilink to the intervention doesn't match up with this statement, neither about the cause of intervention nor the actions of the Israelis. Consider clarification.
• The caption under the picture of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shaking hands seems to indicate they signed the Oslo accords, while the text indicates otherwise. Need to clarify.
• Not entirely sure about this issue, but I will raise it. This website [1] is an Israeli government website. If the material supported uncontroversial facts such as economic statistics, that would generally be ok. But historical information? I would be a little uncomfortable. Suggest finding alternate sources. Recurring dreams 02:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll respond to your points in order:

• I removed the two superfluous links.
• As far as I know, they're basically the same place. In my opinion, Zion needs to be mentioned somewhere to provide the context of the concept of Zionism. Would an or instead of an and between the two places make it clearer that these are talking about the same place?
• I've reworded this in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the sentence.
• The link seems appropriate to me; it links to an article about both the actions of the Israelis and the cause of the intervention.
• I have altered the caption to remove the incorrect statement.
• I disagree. The website is used to refer to the history of the region well prior to the State of Israel. I honestly do not believe the conflict of interest extends that far back. -- tariqabjotu 03:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• I'm happy with your reasoning on the website (you would know more about the reliability of the sources than I do). Bu with the link to the 1982 Lebanon War: the statement in Israel article reads as if it was small scale retaliation at Palestinian forces, while the main page says it was a full scale occupation that involved fighting against numerous countries. I'm not trying to introduce any bias, but as a first time reader of the history of Israel the discrepancy between the two pages was jarring. Otherwise, I offer my support. Recurring dreams 03:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Alright; I've taken care of that as well. -- tariqabjotu 04:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

"Zion" usually means Jerusalem. It's one of the city's many names. okedem 21:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Conditional Support - Overall, great article! Seems comprehensive, well-written, properly sourced, and is of an appropriate length. However, I'd suggest getting rid of some of the wikilinks as the sea of blue makes the article unreadable at times. See Only make links that are relevant to the context. This article definitely has more significant items to link than many articles due to its broad nature. Having said this, it is still over wikilinked. Here are some examples of wikilinks that should be eliminated: judge, jury, civil rights, freedom (political), square mile, square kilometer, fruit, vegetables, drug, software, etc. And that was me quickly going through two sections. Take a look at the rest and get rid of everyday words that are linked. Also, don't over wikilink the same items multiple times in the article. Traditionally, the first time is sufficient although there may be cases where it may be appropriate to do it more than once. For example, Egypt is linked about 6 times. It is notoriously difficult to get controversial articles to FA status; so, if you do it, consider it a great accomplishment! I'm sure there will be somebody who thinks the article doesn't meet NPOV standards (that is, it doesn't meet his or her personal POV), but I personally couldn't find much bias in it. -Bluedog423^Talk 02:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• I'm in the midst of addressing this. I don't agree it's overlinked, "a sea of blue", or "unreadable at times" though; there just may be a few unnecessary links. -- tariqabjotu 03:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
• Alright; complete, perhaps? -- tariqabjotu 04:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• "I don't agree it's overlinked [...] there just may be a few unnecessary links." Ummm, that seems like a contradiction. Anyways, thanks for addressing my concern.-Bluedog423^Talk 19:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• "Ummm, that seems like a contradiction." No, it's not... there were a few extra links that we could do without, but, in my opinion, there weren't so many that they hurt the article or qualified as a "sea of blue" or "[made] the article unreadable at times". The distinction was the degree to which it was a problem, but ultimately it's not a big deal to me whether you believe that's a contradiction. -- tariqabjotu 20:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Ha, we're mostly arguing semantics and it doesn't really matter in the large scheme of things, but...I understand the fact that, in your opinion, the extra links did not contribute to a sea of blue, etc. The contradiction comes from the independent statement, "I don't agree it's overlinked" since you don't qualify it. If it read, "I don't agree that it's overlinked such that it is a sea of blue..." then I'd agree there's no contradiction since it'd be a degree issue as you stated. The comma (as well as the "or") makes it an independent item in a list such that it should stand on its own (if the conjunction was "and," it'd make sense). "I don't agree it's overlinked" = there are an appropriate number of links. "There may just be a few unnecessary links" = there are too many links => contradiction. Anyways, doesn't matter. Please don't respond, and we'll just agree to disagree. ;) Good luck with FAC! Cheers! -Bluedog423^Talk 21:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment There are some stand alone years linked in the "History" section and some that are not. There are several instances of this in the rest of the article also. Is it really necessary to have those links? They don't seem to provide relevant info on the article subject. The same goes for wikilinked centuries. --Victor12 23:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - I would take care of what User:Victor12 has said above, and look over the MOS when it comes to images (mainly about captions), but the article reads very well and is definetly neutral. Best, Happyme22 00:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose - Although well written, I have a few concerns with this article being FA.
  • First off all, the article is far from stable (for obvious political reasons, unfortunately), as is exemplified by its full protection at the moment (reason given: edit warring) [2].
  • Also, in its current form, I feel the article is avoiding and simplifying the current problems in Israel too much. I understand that statements about the problems can give rise to edit warring, but leaving it out is not an option for an FA article. Ofcourse you want examples of this. One of those "simplifications" is the statement that "After the collapse of the talks, Palestinians began the al-Aqsa Intifada." Full stop. Nothing more about it. I know there is a dedicated article, but given the impact of the second intifada on both Israel and the palestines, more information should be provided (e.g. what triggered the Intifada). Another examples is that the article completely avoids explaining that many Israel settlements are controversial and also does not discuss the palestine attacks on israel. In summary, this article cannot do without a summary of Israeli-Palestinian conflict to become comprehensive (which is a requirement for FA).
  • A disclaimer because of the controversial article/POV/NPOV statement above: Yes the article has a neutral point of view at the moment, but this is largely accomplished by completely avoiding any heated issue. Another approach for neutrality is to include both points of view, rather than no-ones. Given good arguments that the current approach is more appropriate, I might change my view here, though. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

In response to your first point, the article is no longer protected. Even still, I don't think it breaks the metric of stability (especially not to the point of being "far from stable"). Prior to today, the article had been largely stable for weeks, with minor or otherwise basic improvements being the only edits to the article. The recent events, in my opinion, were merely a scuffle and although they meet the technical definition of an edit war, edit warring is not a persistent problem. The FA criteria refer to the article changing from day to day as one sign of instability; that has not really happened on this article. As was mentioned during the Jerusalem FAC, the provocative nature of the article's subject cannot be used as a reason for claiming instability. If that forms part of your rationale for instability (I can't really tell), the objection is inactionable.

As for the rest of your point, I disagree to adding much more about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict is mentioned, but the conflict is far too complex to go into the why (or, more appropriately, the numerous whys and theories of why) here; the Israel article is long enough as it is. Pieces of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are mentioned throughout the article – the Palestinian exodus, several peace treaties, multiple wars, riots and insurgencies prior to the establishment, objection to the Jerusalem Law, and the two intifadas are all, for example, mentioned in the article. However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not all there is to Israel. It is important, of course, and that's why events related to it are mentioned in the article, but "comprehensive" does not mean everything there is to know about the subject needs to be included in this one article. For those who are truly interested, the article directs readers several times to other articles where they can find more information about specific aspects of the conflict and Israel. Those articles, not the Israel article, are where the intricacies of the conflict belong. -- tariqabjotu 21:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

On the first point we agree. I have no objections to a provocative subject becoming FA. I just noted that, at the time I looked at the article, it was fully protected. If it was incidental, and the article is normally stable, than that is fine with me. One the second point I am not convinced. Obviously, there is more to Israel then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But for many people outside Israel it is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Israel. Referring to article size is not a convincing argument. The article for example contains a large section about culture, where also six specialized articles are mentioned for further reading. A similar thing could be done for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, explaining the main issues that are the cause for the dispute between the parties. At the moment, the article (except for the infobox) does not even link to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict article. Also, stating that summarizing would be impossible is hard for me to understand. The article I just mentioned also contains an introduction that summarizes the conflict. As many things in that introduction are already present throughout this article, it could be trimmed down significantly to leave a short summary of the conflict. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, stating that summarizing would be impossible is hard for me to understand. I did not say that was impossible to do; I was saying it would be difficult to summarize the causes of particular events such as the Second Intifada (which you used as your example) because there's far too much to discuss for this one article. That, as I understood, was your concern – that the article did not contain enough information about the causes of particular events, as evidenced by your suggestion that we "include both points of view". On the other hand, I'm quite certain summarizing the conflict itself, sans the nuances, is possible because it has already been done. The History section (except for the "Early roots" part) is talking about the conflict perhaps 75% of the time. We may not say "oh, by the way, this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" but it is definitely discussed extensively; I noted examples of these mentions in my previous comment. In fact, at one point two people voiced their concern that we were talking about the conflict too much. As for your complaint that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only linked from the templates, from where do you believe the item can be appropriately linked? (Actually I think I know a good location and will proceed to add that now). -- tariqabjotu 21:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, it is clear that you have given this issue a great deal of thought and have chosen to deal with the issues in this particular way for good reasons. Although I personally would have done it differently, that should not stop others from getting credit for excellent articles the've written in the way they see fit. Therefore (and because I like the short statement about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict you've added), I've struck my oppose. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

• Formatting comment. The article has a side scroll bar (using Firefox). Any idea how to fix this?Wafulz 03:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This has been fixed. I have a feeling it had something to do with a reference written with the entire URL spelled out. -- tariqabjotu 17:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Support -- While by no means a regular contributor to this article, or someone who is well-learned on the subject of Israel, I stopped by the talk page on several occasions and contributed to the article on different occasions. My major concerns, and my major objections at the time, were the continued insertion of POV-slanting language into the article. Most of this revolved around the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I would say that on either end of that debate there were repeated attempts to slant the article in a way that better promoted a particular POV.

As someone who viewed the article as objectively as possible, I am pleased to say that most of these problems have been alleviated. I would like to commend, in particular, the work of User:Tariqabjotu for his efforts in creating the current article, and in preserving the status quo. This is not an easy issue to navigate, and Tariqabjotu has been on the receiving end of much criticism. Yet on the whole, I believe he has taken the reigns in navigating both sides effectively, and in presenting an article that touches on sensitive issues without placing too much emphasis on them (there is, as has been pointed out repeatedly, to myself in particular, more to Israel than the conflict) and without letting any one particular POV dominate.

I believe that this article deserves to be featured. I do, however, have one reservation. If featured on the main page, it will become unprotected, is that correct? In that event, I expect that we can see major and multiple attempts to disrupt the current status of the article. I don't expect this to be too much of a problem (Jerusalem, after all, survived its time as an FA intact) but I do worry that an front page feature might disrupt what I see as an article currently deserving of FA status. I would appreciate if this concern was addressed. SpiderMMB 05:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I doubt the article will be unprotected if it reaches the Main Page; Islam, for example, wasn't unprotected when it was featured July 1. Jerusalem is not an analogous example because it was not under indefinite semi-protection when it hit the Main Page and it is not under that state now. -- tariqabjotu 21:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Support - The article was heavily edited in the past few months to bring it up to FAC standards, and the result speaks for itself. (I've been a minor contributer to the article, mainly just reverting vandalism, and engaging in discussions on the talk page). okedem 10:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

• Provisional oppose Several fixes needed

Comments by Victor12 on style already addressed

• The article needs to comply with WP:DASH as requested by SandyGeorgia. For instance, hyphens need to be replaced by en dashes in page ranges.
  • This has been corrected. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• As I said above stand alone years and centuries provide little or no additional context to the article, they should be delinked.

• It might be a good idea to put "Bibliography" as a separate section instead of being a subsection of "Notes and references"
  • Complete. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• Spelling needs to be consistent with either American or British English. Currently the article uses spellings such as "organization" as well as "organisation". There might be other cases of this.
  • The only time Organisation is used is within proper nouns. From Simple English Wikipedia: For English, NATO uses British English spelling. This is said in its online frequently asked questions (FAQ): "Q: Why do you spell 'organisation' with an 's' and not a 'z'? A: By tradition, NATO uses European English spellings in all public information documents...". However, this is either completely wrong or no longer the case, as evidenced by NATO's website. So, I'll fix it. "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development" is also a proper noun, but I'm not going to change that; "Organisation" appears to be correct. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • There's still a "North Atlantic Treaty Organisation" with an s in the 102nd footnote. --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), articles should be omitted from the beginning of headings. Thus, "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s" and "The 21st century" should be corrected.
• BTW it might be a good idea to merge this two sections as the on the 21st century has only one paragraph.

I have some issues with content also, but I'll post them later. --Victor12 14:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Ignore invocation of WP:DASH unless a case can be made that this is the difference between a good and a great article. Similarly, while The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s is clumsy, First fifty years, 1950s–1990s is unidiomatic; better to recast. Twentieth century Israel, perhaps. I look forward to substantive comments. (I would be reluctant to oppose for spelling inconsistencies; this article will always have them, if only because Israelis write both dialects. But do clean them up this once.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

And I though compliance with WP:MOS was a requirement for FA status. Anyway, here are some in-depth observations which need to be fixed in my humble opinion:

Comments by Victor12 about the History section already addressed

• It doesn't seem like a good idea to use the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a source for the History section for POV reasons. I know it has been used as a reference for some ancient history facts but even so it should be replaced by scholarly sources. The historical presence of Jewish people on the modern territory of Israel has political implications in that it supports the right of existence of the modern state of Israel which is a contentious issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Thus, it would be better to back up this sections with scholarly sources, that is, properly referenced books by historians or archaeologists.
  • Done, although I didn't replace the second usage of the MFA with references from books; what is there, however, ought to be good enough. -- tariqabjotu 07:05, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
• In the sentence Nevertheless, a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine was maintained, although the main Jewish population shifted from the Judea region to the Galilee; the Talmud, one of Judaism's most important religious texts, was composed in the region during this period, does "composed in the region" refer to Palestine or Galilee? It is not clear.

• This has been fixed. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

• The sentences stating that "some Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 made their way to Israel" and that "During the 16th century large Jewish communities were established in Jerusalem..." need references to back them up.
  • Yes, yes, fine, fine. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • This has been fixed. I added a reference for the 1492 expulsion. The Ausubel reference covers the two following sentences. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
• The sentence The Jewish diaspora always aspired to return to the Land of Israel (or Zion); this was articulated in the Bible[28] and the Jewish prayer book needs some reference other than the Bible as it deals with a quite long period, from the 2nd century up to the 18th century. In other words, the reference needs to prove that through all this years Diaspora Jews aspired to return.
  • I suppose a couple could be added. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• The "Zionism and the British Mandate" section needs an intro that actually explains what Zionism is as it is the main topic of the section. One sentence should be enough, readers can look for more details on the main article.
  • There was a sentence that somewhat introduced Zionism that recently got merged into the previous section. I moved it back and also added a definition of Zionism. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• The sentence While the first wave of migrants were mainly Orthodox Jews, the second wave were largely socialist pioneers who established the kibbutz movement. needs a reference. Also, this paragraph is very short. It would be better to merge it with the preceding one
  • Yes, I agree (on the reference point). I thought so myself, but thought I'd subject the article to the FAC crowd for input. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Reference added. -- tariqabjotu 07:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
• The First Intifada is mentioned right after a sentence about Ethiopian Jews; it might be a good idea to explain what the word Intifada refers to.
  • First Intifada is linked. I couldn't tell whether you were objecting to the inclusion of the Ethiopian Jews sentence, but I removed it. The topic is more appropriate for the Demographics section. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • It would be useful to say that it was a Palestinian uprising. Even though I wasn't objecting to that, it was a good call to remove the sentence on Ethiopian Jews. --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• The sentence Over the following six years, more than a thousand people were killed in the ensuing violence, much of which was internal Palestinian violence needs a reference as the last clause might sound contentious to some readers.
  • I agree with this as well. Again, I wanted to subject this to an FAC to see if it became a problem. I'll continue searching for a good source that corroborates this. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• The sentence about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin comes right after a sentence telling how Israel was struck by a wave of attacks from Palestinians. Thus, any reader without prior knowledge of the assassination might conclude that Rabin was assassinated by Palestinians which is not true. That needs to be clear in the text.
  • I agree 100%. The phrase "by a right-wing Jew" was recently edited out, but I just put it back in. 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
• There's are several cases of parenthesis in this article. This doesn't make for compelling prose in my opinion.

• • I believe the Manual of Style is silent on the commonality of parentheses, so I can't say much to this. This is, as you say, a matter of opinion. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for dealing with this one. --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• The following sentences smell like POV to me: During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands. It implies Arabs fled (for unknown reasons) while Jews were persecuted. Reading the 1948 Palestinian exodus article one could make a compelling case that Arabs were also persecuted by Jews. The text needs to be better balanced to comply with NPOV.
  • I am not going to address this. If one wants to see bias in that, they can, but we can't be addressing things that kinda sorta look like bias if you look at them from a certain angle on Tuesdays. For example, one might say mentioning the number of Arabs that fled Israel without mentioning the number of Jews that fled Arab lands is biased against Jews. No, that's not bias; that's sentence variation. The definition of the word fled does not exclude the possibility that Arabs in Israel were persecuted. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Yes, it does not exclude but it also does not imply persecution. So while stating that Jews fled persecution it does not say whether Arabs were also persecuted or not. We need more opinions on this. Maybe a RfC? --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
      • I still disagree and I'm not ready to make the change myself. I get the impression (not from the article; I mean in general, from outside sources, as well as wiki pages written on the relevant subjects) the Jewish exodus was more directly and unarguably the result of persecution and antisemitism (which still persists to this day) whereas the cause of Palestinian exodus is disputed, with the theories of persecution being more muted. I don't think we should say the two events were caused by the same type of thing when that is not the case. -- tariqabjotu 02:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
• In the sentence These exoduses became a vital component of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the fate of Palestinian refugees today remains a major point of contention, "today" is redundant.
  • Not necessarily. Without it, it could mean "remains a point of contention [for some period of time we're not saying]". For instance, if it had remained a point of contention for twenty years, a long time, it would still be reasonable to say it "remains a point of contention" (although that's unclear). Whereas the tense we want here is present tense, it could equally mean relative present tense (not sure if that's the right tense). Anyway, I believe "today" removes the ambiguity and clarifies that it remains a point of contention even until today, sixty years later. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
    • How can you reasonably use "remains" for something that has ended in the past? That's a flagrant contradiction. Something that was a point of contention for several years is said to have "remained" as such, not that it "remains" so. --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Perhaps, but either way one word should not make or break a featured article. The word today seems perfectly fine, for clarity. -- tariqabjotu 02:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, that's the History section for now, I'll try to continue with the rest of the article tomorrow. --Victor12 02:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Following MOS, as a guideline should be followed, is a criterion; but worrying over dots and dashes is putting the means before the end. Is the millimeter difference between an endash and a hyphen going to make this into our best work, or if left alone, prevent the article from being our best work? Probably not; but if the difference is that important, fix it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

And I though that Nominators are expected to make an effort to address objections. Anyway, please let's stop here, as you said this is a minor point and I think I have looked at several issues besides MOS while reviewing this article including content, POV and sources. Besides the article now complies with WP:DASH, and I didn't do a thing :-) --Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose—1a. Copy-edit needed throughout. It has promise if fixed up.
  • Remove "located" in the first sentence.
    • This is a matter of opinion. In my opinion, for instance, the word located separates two similar phrases Southwest Asia and southeastern edge nicely. -- tariqabjotu 14:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Everything is "a matter of opinion". If I see that removing a word leaves the meaning unchanged, I advise the writer to remove it. Please state why it's useful to separate those phrases: I can't see why it would be so. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Also adjacent are the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are partially administrated by the Palestinian National Authority." Please don't start a sentence like this with "Also". Every sentence, in any case, is an also (although I see a good use of the word in "also home" lower down). And mixing geography (the pre-existing theme) with politics/administration so closely is awkward; at least use a semicolon: "The West Bank and Gaza Strip are adjacent; they are partially administrated by the Palestinian National Authority." Seems to need a little content added to make it smoother (partly by the PNA, and partly by Israel? It's stubby as is. And I see that the West Bank is excluded from the red bit on the map, yet it says that Israel's borders were "expanded" in the sdw—seems inconsistent).
    • I have removed also from the beginning of the sentence, per your request, but "mixing geography... with politics/administration" here is almost unavoidable. If we omit that Israel is adjacent to the West Bank and Gaza, someone's going to say the article is just establishing that those areas are part of Israel. If we were to say those two areas are adjacent, but omit that they are partially administered by the PNA, someone will say the article is (wrongly) implying that those two regions are autonomous countries and/or neglecting that Israel has something to do with them. This wording may be imperfect, but we may not be able to do much better for an introduction. The introduction was among the most-discussed portions of the article, so I think it's safe to say this generally works fine. As for your last sentence... the intro (the only time "expanded" is used in the article) discusses the borders being expanded during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, not the Six-Day War. That fact is indisputable. -- tariqabjotu 14:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  • When is a national capital not its seat of government?
    • The Netherlands are an (only?) example - Amsterdam is the capital, though the seat of government is The Hague. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Then it's normally assumed if there's only one exception in the world. Remove "seat of government" as redundant. The opening should have as little clutter as possible. This is clutter. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "many of the neighboring Arab countries"—no, "its".
    • What difference does it make? -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and efforts are being made to reach a permanent accord with the Palestinians." I hope that's going to be referenced further down.
    • The peace treaties are linked, so I suppose you're talking about the Palestinians. There have been talks since 1991 (Madrid conference), leading to the Oslo Accords, and many, many negotiations since, with withdrawals, agreements, etc. It's all detailed in the article itself and in the linked articles. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
      • OK Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • MOS: no period unless caption is a proper sentence—Check through them; the "David BG" one is at issue, at least. And there's another I see.
    • This has been done. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s"—See MOS on initial "The" in titles. Uncomfortable use of comma rather than parentheses.
    • The use of "the" is just about unavoidable as "First fifty years, 1950s-1990s" sounds very odd. If you have another name for the section that removes the year system altogether, I'd love to hear it. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "These years were marked by mass immigration of Holocaust survivors"—Check through for missing "the"s.
    • I don't see where a the is necessary. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Are you really insisting on spelling out all numbers? Even the huge ones? Easier to read as numerals.
    • No, and not all numbers are spelled out. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Grammar: "and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy to Palestinians".
    • Changed to "autonomy for Palestinians". Is that okay? okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
  • For such a highly militarised state, I find the section on "Military" laughably short. Tony 02:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
    • I have added some things to the Military section. -- tariqabjotu 05:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
  • "Israel is considered one of the most advanced countries in"—Just get rid of the "considered", which adds nothing. A reference is provided, anyway.
    • "Considered" was placed there (after complaints) to avoid siding with that opinion, since it's not really a fact, but depends on how you measure development. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Um ... who's doing the considering, then? It raises that question and doesn't solve the original issue. If you can't bring yourselves to make the bald statement, it shouldn't be made at all, or its status should be explicated properly. This fuzzy "considered" just weakens the authority of the text. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • 53rd-highest GNP per capity at PPP sounds way low on the food chain. I guess you've checked it.
    • It's 53rd on total GDP, 37th per capita. Anyway, that's no longer true. I'll update according to the IMF data (List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita). okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, I won't update it, since I don't know which set of data to choose - World Bank? CIA? IMF? They're not even close... (List of countries by GDP (PPP)). okedem 10:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Much of the problem is how to define purchasing power, some is whether Hong Kong is a country; I would suggest "around fiftieth, between Chile and Morocco," and the details in a note; check with external sources, of course. For a country which does not have eitha an enormous or miniscule populartion, per capita is probably a more useful comparator anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
        • I agree that GNP per capita (both PPP and non-PPP) are much more useful. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Why is a common word such as "pharmaceuticals" linked? Delink please, so as not to dilute the important links. Tony 02:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

• You can take the invitation above to "igore" MOS as you like, but the fact remains that FAs need to follow it (Criterion 2). Please note that Anderson is conducting her very own war against MOS, and coming up against quite a deal of resistance in the process. Dashes are important to good writing. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  • That is Tony's take on MOS, which he has been attempting to use to revise the English language on such matters as Socrates's. He has severe ownership problems. The comment above, however, was to opposition over endashes, which has been deprecated here and elsewhere. I am pleased to observe that the present discussion appears to be over the substance of the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

This article is rather incomplete. It ignores some of the most important issues that have shaped the state and its conflict, and it oversimplifies the things that it doesn't ignore. Where is UN Security Council Resolution 242 in this? What about the significant concession made relatively recently that the Munich retaliations were not executed only against those directly responsible? There are a hundred omissions and distortions like this. Who wrote this? Any actual scholars around here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.121.109.39 (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

You can't condense all information about a country into a single article. This article is just the basis for further reading, in the many linked articles. okedem 21:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Break 1

• More comments Most of the comments I've made above have already been resolved, though some remain. More comments follow:

• What's up with the two templates in the History section? Shouldn't they be placed on the History of the State of Israel article? You can replace them with pictures.

If you do have some pictures in mind that could be useful in place of the templates, please present them. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Upon closer examination, it seems to me the Aliyah template is quite useful and it links to this article. However, I'm not sure about the second one, as it is not about Israel but about the region as a whole. It should link to History of the State of Israel IMHO. In its place it would be useful to have a pic of one of the Arab-Israeli wars. There should be several of those available. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the "Geography" section the distinction between the "sovereign territory of Israel", the "area under Israeli law" and the "total area under Israeli control" is not clear. Some rewriting might be useful
• Why is the section named "Geography and climate"? Geography includes climate so just "Geography" would be better.

Okay; that's your opinion. You are aware of Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, right? Trivial arguments over the preferences of certain editors distract from the real items that need to be address (which, as of now, a few and far between). -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware. Just making an opinion. No need to get angry. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The statement The Israeli Coastal Plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to seventy percent of the nation's population seems to belong under "Demographics" not under "Geography".

Again, a simple preference. I'm not going to act upon this. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Demographic info under "Demographics" seems pretty logical to me. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The sentence East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, which forms a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,040-mi.) Great Rift Valley, through which the Jordan River runs from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth has too many subordinate clauses which make it confusing. It currently seems to imply that the Jordan River runs through the Great Rift Valley. It would be better to split this long sentence.

I've rephrased for clarity and accuracy (the river doesn't originate in the Sea of Galilee). okedem 10:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• About the makhteshim, the article claims they're unique to Israel and the Sinai, however, that's in contradiction to the Makhtesh article. Also it says they're similar to craters, that is, they're not craters, but then they are called craters, one of them being the world's largest natural crater. If they're indeed craters, the word "similar" should be deleted. What's a natural crater anyway? Also are they important enough t deserve two sentences? This seems like WP:Undue weight.

Makhteshim are a very interesting natural phenomenon. They're "erosion craters", as opposed to most craters, which are "impact craters". That sentence should probably be tweaked. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the sentence From May to September, rain in Israel is rare it would be useful to add that those months correspond to the summer season.

Oh c'mon. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, not everybody lives in the northern hemisphere. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but even those who don't can see that Israel is, and can understand when summer is. Let's not insult our readers. okedem 15:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the "Government and politics" section why are there so many see also links? They are quite specific so they should be linked in the text and not in this prominent position at the start of the section.

Okay; that's your opinion. You are aware of Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, right? I like the X arrangement better than the Y arrangement is not a good reason. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The statement the government can dissolve itself at any time by a no-confidence vote seems contradictory. Is the no-confidence vote made by the government itself? If not, it can't "dissolve itself".

The parliament members that make up the government (or the coalition) can vote against the government, thus dissolving it. Maybe "The Knesset can dissolve the government at any time..." would be better. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've implemented my suggestion. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• In The third and highest court in Israel is the Supreme Court, the word "third" is problematic as it implies there are only three courts in Israel. Maybe reword as "the third type of court" or something like that.

How about something using "third tier"? okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I've implemented my suggestion. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Is this sentence necessary? Israel's civil liberties also allow for self-criticism, from groups such as B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. Self-criticism seems implied in the preceding text by mentioning Israel as a free country. Also, is B'Tselem important enough to be mentioned in this article?

B'Tselem is a very well known human rights organization, so I do think it's important enough. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Okedem. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• Is the see also link for "List of cities in Israel" necessary? It should be moved to the text below or removed.

Okay; that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The sentence about metropolitan areas might confuse some readers with the distinction between metropolitan areas and cities. Is it really important or can it be removed.

So what if it might confuse some readers? There's a distinct difference between a metropolitan area and a city, and it is not our fault if some don't know that. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, apparently, the city article suggests this clear distinction is primarily limited to the United States. I'm not sure how this can be avoided. -- tariqabjotu 08:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this article should only mention info on cities and leave metropolitan areas to the main Demographics of Israel article. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the "Foreign relations" subsection the bit on the United States, Germany, Turkey and Iran is confusing as it is written in past tense and does not specify to what period it refers. The whole subsections speaks about Israeli foreign relations in the present so why mention Iran as an ally in the past? Also the role of the United States as an ally should be adequately emphasized. It still provides major military and financial aid to Israel as well as an important "diplomatic aid" at the UN and other international forums. This subsection needs some rework.

• I'll try to work on this soon. Stay tuned. -- tariqabjotu 08:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• I have expanded this, but note that the U.S.'s contributions to Israel are covered in other sections. -- tariqabjotu 18:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

• The bit about "enemy countries" should be moved up, right after the mention of the Arab League, so as to keep all Arab countries together. Also, isn't Iran considered an "enemy country"?

No, Iran is not considered an enemy country, as it was never at war with Israel, and never declared war. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Sentence has been moved. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• In the "Military" section, the see also links should moved to the text or removed in my opinion.

Okay; that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The statement The Israeli- and U.S.-designed Arrow missile is one of the world's only operational ballistic missile systems is a mistake, the Arrow is not a ballistic missile, but an anti-ballistic missile system

Fixed. okedem 10:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Why is 1984 given as an example for high defense expenditures? It is just one year so it does not prove anything. It would be better to have an average for a decade or so. SIPRI might be a good source for this, check its database at www.sipri.org

Okay, that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Here I do see a problem because one year doesn't prove much and it is not very useful as an example either because the reader doesn't know how representative of a trend it is. It would be better to have an average for a decade or so. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• US military aid definitely needs to be mentioned here.

And it is... -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Currently the section only mentions arms imports from the US and American cooperation in the development of the Arrow missile. US aid is much more important than that. Israel receives lots of money and weapons paid for by the American government. That seems pretty important. --Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Economic aid from the U.S. is also mentioned in the Economy section. Also, I'm going to attempt to fulfill your request to expand the foreign relations section (not by a whole lot; probably just a paragraph). I'll wait to see your response after that is completed. -- tariqabjotu 14:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I meant military aid, lots of info about that on this article: Israel-United States military relations. It can even be argued that US military aid saved Israel existence during the Yom Kippur war, check Operation Nickel Grass. As for foreign relations, drop me a note when you're finished and I'll check it again. --Victor12 15:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

• The paragraph on nuclear weapons is quite small, it should be expanded or merged with the preceding one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Victor12 (talk • contribs) 02:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. An article on Israel in which no mention is made of the charges of ethnic cleansing in the foundation of the state is not encyclopedic. This is not an article on Switzerland, but rather on a country that has a lot of issues. Wikipedia should not take a position on any of these issues (another matter that needs work); but it is just silly and uninformative to pretend that they don't exist. Tegwarrior 05:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • There was much discussion about this on the talk page. I, as I'm sure many, have opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I don't refute the arguments of others on account of whether they agree with my views or now. Tegwarrior, on the other hand, has reduced responses to his requests to include "ethnic cleansing" (and other disputed language) in the article as certain editors, including myself, being "blinded by pro-Israeli bias". You can read talk page yourself, but I'm not going to give into Tegwarrior's bullying. -- tariqabjotu 12:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
    • "Bullying," Tariq??! I think I've made a lot of effort to address the concerns of people who disagree with my changes, but in response I mainly get a lot of uncommented reverts, including some in violation of the three revert rule. I'm sorry if you and okedem and Jossi and now Squash Racket feel like you're surrounded by me! I can't even get a POV flag kept on the page! Tegwarrior 16:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
      • Tegwarrior, you seem to misunderstand the way Wikipedia works. When you make a controversial change to a stable article, and it's disputed, you don't just re-insert it (in fact, you probably shouldn't even make such changes without discussion). The stable version remains (without POV tags), and we discuss the issue on the talk page. That's what we've been doing for a very long time, and the phrasing you now see is usually (especially in the case of the intro) a result of careful, months long deliberations, designed as a middle-of-the-road compromise between the engaged editors, in an attempt to reach NPOV. I can't say that attempt is always 100% successful, but it represents a lot of work, and is probably better than what any one person can reach, despite what they may think. Coming in and changing it to a version you think is better, and complaining when the consensual version is restored, is not the way it's done. okedem 16:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment When I last time tried to use Britannica in an article, I got this answer: 'encyclopedias are not secondary but tertiary sources and as such may not be cited as a reference'. Britannica is cited in this article a few times. Is that OK or not? Squash Racket 08:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I think I know what you're talking about. I thought that was the case as well, but I believe the secondary/tertiary source piece was deprecated during the Wikipedia:Attribution shakeup earlier this year. Regardless, the Britannica sources could probably be avoided (in fact, the three uses of the Encyclopedia are citing different parts of the same sentence). I still have to attend to the request farther up to add more to the Foreign relations section and I plan to get to that first, once I find the time. -- tariqabjotu 12:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. I'm afraid that it is the case that Israel is the sort of article that the wiki format will never do a good job on. I had thought that maybe with some minor work, the article might at least be more neutral, but I now doubt very much that that can ever happen. Israel probably should never be a featured article. Tegwarrior 16:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose I've been watching the article's progress during this FA period so as to see if major gaps in coverage of important issues in the name of WP:NPOV have been addressed and filled in. They have not. Even simple suggestions made to link to articles that have more detail have not been implemented (See for example this archived talk section. The link to Martial law#Israel was never made.) I don't think an article can be featured when it fails to cover significant domestic legislation like martial law or the Defense (Emergency) Regulations or provide information or links to articles on significant populations among its citizenry like Internally Displaced Palestinians. I also don't think the wording is NPOV in many of the brief summaries that are in place. I've watched good-faith editors get slapped down trying to introduce balance and can offer that the article has enjoyed some stability largely because people get triple-teamed when they try to make changes that introduce nuance, subtlety or multiple points of view and lose the stomach for the battle. As a result, we are left with a robotic, and rather pedantic and misleading account of a country with an incredibly unique and fascinating history which does no one any justice, least of all our readers. I think it would be an incredible shame if this article was featured in its current form. It certainly would indicate how low Wikipedia's standards can fall. Superficiality is no substitute for substance. Tiamut 20:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The Israel article is not expected to have all there is to know about Israel. That being said, I can't speak to the "major gaps in coverage" of which you speak. I have seen no indication of what you could have in mind, except for the items you mention in your comment here. But essentially, you're argument has whittled down to "the article is not talking about X, Y, and Z, so it's a bad article". Well, I have news for you: it's also not talking about A, B, and C. There is a significant amount of stuff that paints Palestinians in a positive light and Israelis in a negative light that is not included, but there is also a significant amount of information that paints Palestinians in a negative light and Israelis in a positive light that is not included. Sadly, we have some here, on both sides of the spectrum that are disoriented by tunnel vision and only see that their perspective is not adequately covered.

Your assertion saying, "I've watched good-faith editors get slapped down trying to introduce balance and can offer that the article has enjoyed some stability largely because people get triple-teamed when they try to make changes that introduce nuance, subtlety or multiple points of view and lose the stomach for the battle" is completely unfounded. As any outside observer ought to be able to tell, complaints from certain editors have resulted in extensive discussions on the talk page. However, while they start off being discussions regarding the merits of certain content, they have, at times, ended with the minority position making claims that the majority position is biased. People who resort to baseless attacks like those should be ignored. That's not to say every person complaining about point-of-view is making baseless attacks, but when they do, it hurts their position greatly.

As you obviously have not noticed, the article has taken into consideration the comments of quite a few people here. That some of yours have not been addressed based on their merit is not an indication of a poorly-written article. Unfortunately, some here have taken the fact that their items have not been addressed (or what you for some reason term "triple-teaming") to mean that some biased cabal is out to get them instead of the more probable explanation – that they are wrong. -- tariqabjotu 18:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The points I've raised have very little to do with Palestinian actually. I've asked for coverage of Israels' domestic situation in the years following independece. Specifically, I've asked for there to be mention of and a link to Martial law#Israel which discusses how there was martial law in effect for Israel's Arab citizens from 1948 to 1966 and for their to be mention of and links to the Defense (Emergency) Regulations and Land and property laws in Israel. That you keep dismissing my specific suggestions with generalities about how this article is not about Palestinians shows how little you are paying attention to what is actually being said. These are domestic laws affecting citizens of Israel. How is this not relevant to an article on Israel? I've also asked that Internally Displaced Palestinians (i.e. Arab citizens of Israel who were made interal refugees as a result of wars) also be mentioned in the article. I've also pointed out that the article is very Ashkenazi-Jewish centered in its perspective and could use more on minority groups in Israel. If you want to keep pretending that my interest in these improvements comes from some kind of axe I like grinding with Israel, you can. But you'd miss the point and the opportunity to collaborate to actually improve an article that still falls far short of being a feature. Again, the superciality and evasion of the issues in the text leave it lacking in substance and complexity/nuance. Tiamut 21:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The military administration - Adding that would entail adding the details of why it was enacted. It would take a lot of space, which we don't really have, the article being long as it is. I've already said if you could come up with an succinct NPOV phrasing, doing justice to both sides, I'd support it.

Internally Displaced Palestinians - Same problem (lots of Jews lost their homes too, by the way).

Defense (Emergency) Regulations and Land and property laws in Israel - not important enough.

Ashkenazi-Jewish - I've asked you what the basis for this claim was. It is Jewish-centered, as it should be, Jews being the majority, and Israel being a Jewish state, but perhaps too much - why don't you suggest something for the Culture section, for instance? But Ashkenazi-centered? How? okedem 22:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Break 2

• Indictment. I'm guessing that "indictment" is an unusual header for this sort of project page, but what I have to say here goes beyond commentary and into accusation. Normally, I would make such complaints on the article talk page, and indeed I have discussed a couple of these items there. However, a few editors there are, in my opinion, too pig-headed to take seriously any suggestion that there are serious bias issues with the article. So here, unless someone decides he can censor and obfuscate this page as well as the Israel article and its talk page, are some glaring bias issues with the article:

1. The introduction is almost eerily silent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 13: [3]. The intro mentions adjacent territories administered by the Palestinian National Authority, with a link for the PNA but no further explanation of what it is; without knowing the background already, I would be tempted to think this was an organization that managed mass transit or sewerage, which is what most of the "Authorities" in my part of the world do. Later, the bizarre comment, "... efforts are being made to reach a permanent accord with the Palestinians," is made. Now, hopefully to everyone reading this text, this does not seem like such a bizarre thing to appear in an article on Israel; the problem is, "the Palestinians" have not been mentioned heretofore in the article, nor has any matter over which there could be a need for a permanent accord between Israel and them been mentioned. Anyone who might get any real use out of this article - that is, anyone who doesn't already know probably more of Israel's facts and history than are presented in the article - will likely view this as a sort of contract violation by the article: you do not write of geography and foundation history of a country before glibly mentioning the ongoing, existential war any more than you put the renter's obligation to dispose of the body in the trunk at the end of a car rental agreement. I may speculate that the glossing over of "those whom we do not name if we can help it" follows informal Israeli government policy, but in any case the result is simply crap.

2. The "History" section of the article has several subsections, including "Independence" and "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s." (Maybe the numbers, which at best really indicate the second through the fiftieth year rather than the first fifty years, should be eliminated, but never mind that.) The "Independence" section includes the passage, "During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands." While I will comment further on these sentences later, for now I will concentrate on the second of them. A comment on the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, the earliest major portion of which began in May 1949, a year after independence,[4] simply does not belong in the "Independence" section. The exodus of Jews from Arab lands was quite simply a phenomenon of the 1950s and later more than of Israel's independence.[5] Iraqi Jews began migration in 1951,[6] Egypt's Jews mostly fled after the Sinai War in 1956, Algeria's Jews mostly fled after Algerian independence in 1961 (ditto Tunisian Jews), etc. There are exceptions, but they are just that: exceptions. So, big deal, right? The sentence could be in a better place; why not just move it? Well, because every time it has been moved it has quickly and summarily been moved right back to where it was, with "but this one goes up to eleven"-style arguments (if any are even given) for why that is where it belongs. It might seem odd and a bit stupid, without just a little piece of outside information: there is another informal Zionist policy that whenever the Palestinian refugees are mentioned, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands should also be mentioned, with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) suggestion that these two atrocities cancel each other out.[7], [8], [9] Now, with just a little thought, this is a stupid position: that Jones steals Smith's car is not made okay by Jones giving the car to Black, who has had his car stolen by Brown. But I suppose it makes even less sense if Black hadn't even lost his car at the time that Jones steals Smith's car, so I may speculate that this marginal little bit of "less stupidness" is intended to be preserved by pretending that the exodus of Jews from Arab lands was an important matter in Israel's independence.

3. Back to the two sentences, "During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands." Even while these are, whether coincidentally or by design, describing somewhat parallel events, the sentences are not particularly parallel: the Arabs simply "fled," but "Arab persecution ... precipitated" the Jewish exodus. Part of this complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 10: [10]. Efforts at both adding a cause for the Arab "flight" and for not stating as fact a single and disputed cause for the exodus of Arab Jews have been met with strong recalcitrance at the article, and no real change has resulted. Now, it is bad enough that the appearance is given that these excitable Arabs just left for no apparent reason while it was only Arab wickedness that forced the Jews to leave, but it is really worse than that: the causes of the flight of the Palestinians, which are not mentioned in the passage (and probably only barely if at all in the entire article) are directly part of the history of Israel (remember Israel? there's an article about Israel ...), while the causes of the flight of the Arab Jews are at most indirectly part of the history of Israel. And yet, which gets into the article?

4. The "first fifty years" subsection mentions nothing of the Palestinians, in spite that Israel was in a constant state of international condemnation over them after its independence, until (following a pattern similar to the introduction) a paragraph that begins, "In the early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics." Huh! Again those excitable Palestinians going all crazy for no reason! A similar complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 9: [11]. It's a bit like the bible, explaining how the Canaanites are all going to be destroyed and then they keep showing up through the next seven books, and, as with the introduction, this effort at (I speculate) avoiding any mention of any wrongs that may have been committed against the Palestinians by the Israelis, but capturing a full sense of the opposite, results in a broken, inconsistent narrative: crap.

5. There is no mention in the article of the matter of land confiscations by Israel; approximately 18% of the territory of Israel was confiscated by the government through means of dubious legality, and this is a matter over which Israel has faced constant criticism and demands that at least compensation should be paid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tegwarrior (talk • contribs) 13:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

What land are you referring to? -- tariqabjotu 15:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The 18% of the land that became Israel that was confiscated from private Arab owners after the 1948 War.[12] Tegwarrior 17:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

This results from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Palestinian exodus, which are both mentioned already. You forgot to mention that the land Israel "confiscated" came from people who left during the events I just noted. -- tariqabjotu 18:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

See, Tariq, while you apparently do not even recognize it, your understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is informed almost exclusively by the Israeli position. You really are not qualified to impose neutrality on the article. Tegwarrior 20:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

No... I'm merely looking at the source you presented me. -- tariqabjotu 22:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

And yet, you see some significance in the fact that they "left." I left my home this morning; would that make some sort of difference, morally or legally, if I found myself barred from my own house when I returned? Why do you focus on the word? Tegwarrior 22:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem determined to find bias in everything I say; I'm not falling for it. I'm merely pointing out what the source said and what you neglected to mention. You leaving your house to go to work or on vacation or something similar is not at all like leaving or fleeing in the midst of a war (please don't be silly). I can tell you for sure that if I see what I believe is an imminent threat from another country, I'm not going to first make sure I sell my home to the enemy government; I'm going to get the hell out of there and move on. As I mentioned previously, this exodus (and the ceasefire with the Green Line) is already mentioned. I see no reason to rub it in with "yeah, they took the land vacated during the war". Uh... yeah... thanks Captain Obvious; that goes without saying... hence, the Green Line. -- tariqabjotu 17:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You seem determined not to find bias in anything you say; maybe you've fallen for something. What is not obvious is how much land was taken; if, in the US, area equal in size to Washington State, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada combined had been confiscated from private owners, would that not merit some prominent mention in an article about the US? If 100,000,000 Americans were displaced today by some conflict, do you not think that that would be a very significant thing to mention about the US even a hundred years from now? These are, if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct (and I'm pretty sure they're not too far off), representative of the scale of the issues of the Palestinians at the time of the founding of Israel. And now you'll probably make some clever comment to rationalize your position that they still should not be mentioned in the introduction, nor emphasized anywhere in the article. Knock yourself out. Tegwarrior 13:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

I may add more to this later, but hopefully this is sufficient to demonstrate that the article is very badly broken, it resists improvement of even its most glaring bias problems, and it has no business at this point in time becoming a featured article. So ... J'accuse!

Tegwarrior 05:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Let me just give a few brief responses. I can't understand what your point is in your first paragraph, so I'm going to have to skip over it. Each of your points, however, appears to be supplemented by a claim that other's points are "summarily dismissed". No one has dismissed anything. People may have disagreed with proposals for changing such things, but they were never summarily dismissed. This follows the string of seeing only what you want to see. I can't speak for others, but the only time I will slam the door in someone's face is when they are being blatantly troll-like, incivil, and unproductive.

In #2, you appear to complain about the presentation of the exoduses, but then proceed to explain why it's not necessary to rearrange the sentences. No one is saying that one exodus justifies the other. However, readers are free to come to their own conclusions. I'm sure that many, like yourself, will say that two wrongs don't make a right and just take the items at face value – that one exodus occurred first and another occurred in part due to persecution that arose due to the establishment of Israel. On the other hand, others will look at the pair of sentences and say that two wrongs do make a right. This is still left up to reader. Just as you have prevented viewing one tragedy as justifying the other, others will be able to make their own conscious decisions based on information available.

Your point in #3 was discussed at great length on the talk page, where you failed to present a quality source to back up your alternative explanation. Meanwhile, you advocated terming the idea that Jews were persecuted in Arab lands as just a "claim". It does not matter if you think you know better; Wikipedia relies on verifiability, based on reliable sources. Regardless, Okedem (talk · contribs) even proposed a rewrite of the sentence, which you didn't seem to care much about.

In #4, the link is not related to what you are talking about. You are suggesting that the article is mentioning Palestinian attacks too often, while Tiamut (in the link) is advocating that we mention the institution of martial law. Perhaps the mentions of Palestinian attacks could be cut down or balanced out with something else. Okedem (talk · contribs) noted (in Talk:Israel/Archive_22#Controversy) that he thought it might be a good idea to talk about the territories (although not necessarily the whole conflict); I'm curious if he's going to continue to act on that. But you can't come in guns-ablazing about that; you have not brought this up before. -- tariqabjotu 06:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll just address one clear misstatement of fact: I did not advocate "terming the idea that Jews were persecuted in Arab lands as just a 'claim'." I advocated making clear that it was not an undisputed fact that Arab persecution precipitated the exodus of Jews from Arab lands, which is how it is presented in the article. If you want to discuss anything further with me, restore the POV tag that I and now Tiamut have been unsuccessfully trying to put on the article until complaints are actually read for comprehension and addressed. Tegwarrior 13:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

If you think a discussion can only take place when a POV tag is in place, you are sorely mistaken, and understand nothing of Wikipedia. okedem 14:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I think that if I cannot even get it recognized that there is an ongoing dispute about bias in the article, there is little reason for me to imagine that I can get any of the matters of bias that I see addressed. I won't waste my time trying to polish a turd. Tegwarrior 15:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There is always a dispute in some matter in such controversial topics. That doesn't mean we need tags. There have been plenty of discussions in the talk page, and they didn't need any tags. When you insist on tagging things, I understand your interest is probably more in causing a riot, than fixing any actual issues.

If dealing with this article is a waste of time for you, please - leave. okedem 15:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts. You might want to think about making more comments on the talk pages of articles before you revert people's changes, just as a matter of simple civility and of assuming good faith. Tegwarrior 15:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

In reply to TegWarrior's comments about the lead section - it is 2140 characters as I write this, of which 714 characters - 33.3% (In 1947 ... accord with the Palestinians.) are about the Arab-Israeli conflict. So TegWarrior's claim that it doesn't adaquently cover this are without merit. Raul654 14:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all, my claim was that the introduction does not adequately cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is related to but distinctly not the same as the Arab-Israeli conflict, mostly because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is between a state and a mostly unorganized indigenous population from the territory controlled by that state while the Arab-Israeli conflict is mostly between states. The conflict between the state of Israel and the mostly unorganized indigenous population has been an ongoing matter with repercussions basically every day in Israel and the Occupied Territories, repercussions that have profoundly affected the history of Israel. The inter-state conflict gets played out mostly through diplomatic scheming and the occasional border dispute and infrequent war, and probably has had a much less pronounced effect on Israel. Secondly, I question your method of deciding to count particular characters as being about even the Arab-Israeli conflict: that "the United Nations approved the partition of the Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab" is about the Arab-Israeli conflict is a bit of a stretch - how does this, on its face, indicate a cause for conflict? Are you certain, Raul654, that you are knowledgeable enough about Israel to dismiss with any authority my comments as being "without merit?" Tegwarrior 15:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The introduction spends a third of its length covering the larger Arab-Israeli conflict, which includes the Palastinians. Claiming it doesn't adaquently address the Palastinians (who, in point of fact, played a more-or-less negligible role in the conflict prior to the Yom Kippur War) is hair splitting. As far as the UN partition - yes, I am counting that sentence as being part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, because it's impossible to talk about the causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict without mentioning it. Raul654 19:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

So the accusations of ethnic cleansings, the property confiscations, these things that are particular to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as opposed to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that are not mentioned at all in the introduction nor much at all in the entire article, these things that are central to the founding of Israel as a Jewish State and that have been the subject of dozens of international condemnations are not worth a separate mention in the introduction? It is likely that without the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the confiscation of their property by Israel, Israel would have been unable to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants that it welcomed in the couple of years after the 1948 War; how do these events play only a "negligible role in the conflict?" Tegwarrior 20:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

• Comment—Improving. There are still little things to clear up, such as the following, which are only random samples: "comprised primarily of Zionist volunteers" is wrong ("composed"); no hyphen after "-ly". "administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status"—over the status of the UN? Apparently Americans don't like superscript 2 on their units (it's inconsistently applied here). "4,040-mi."—MOS says no dots for abbreviations, nor hyphens. "40 km (25 mi) by 8 km (5 mi)" --> "40 × 8 km (25 × 5 mi)"? "Membership in the Knesset"—wrong preposition. "and the two countries have had a long history of economic and military cooperation despite Arab pressure. [126]" Errant space and vague statement: pressure on whom? For what?

And more. Tony (talk) 04:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.