Talk:Palestinian territories

This is not a political forum; please restrict all discussion here to discussion about how best to improve the Palestinian territories article. Off topic debates, political rants, nonsense poetry, etc. will all be removed as it is added. This is a travel guide and political disputes are utterly irrelevant except insofar as they directly bear upon the experience of a traveller. See Wikivoyage:Be fair#Political disputes for further guidelines.

Archived discussions Talk:Palestinian territories/Archive 2003-2012

Political edits

Along with Israel this article is a magnet for political edits. The official policies here are that the traveller comes first and we try to be fair. This is a travel wiki, so please concentrate on information that is important to travelers, and make all efforts to avoid edits which take sides in the politics of the region - there are links to Wikipedia where interested users can read about the history of the conflict. Note that editors and users here are not implying that the debate is unimportant, merely that it is in the interest of travelers to focus on travel information. As always anyone interested is encouraged to discuss on the relevant talk page. -- (WT-en) Ryan 17:16, 17 April 2006 (EDT)

Having been guilty of what some will inevitably regard as making political edits, the status is extra-ordinarily complex. The problem is that in this part of the world, the way outsiders and visitors view the situation has significant repercussions for people's lives. Visitors not informed about the debate will not understand what they see on the ground. You cannot visit without being political - either through what you do or what you don't do, what you know and what you don't know. A potential solution would be to copy background/history from Wikipedia where the emphasis is on these more encyclopedic facts and to limit this page to supplementary travel guidance. Similarly with the Jerusalem page. (WT-en) Henryr 07:02, 25 September 2010 (EDT)

Hey, I'm trying to re-organize so people can look at the political stuff if they want to, but we spend more time on why someone would want to go to the PA and what to do there. So I just dove in, but by all means, let's talk about how to do this.

LeptonMadness (talk) 00:25, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Your edits seemed fine to me. I also edited out the word "fled." My reasoning is that I never want there to be a debate about how many Palestinian refugees fled just because they were escaping a war zone, how many may have been told by someone to leave or else, etc. The point is, they were war refugees are were stuck outside of Israel when the war ended. And that's probably as much as we need to say about how many Palestinians came to be refugees, given that this is a travel guide and not an in-depth history guide. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Your edits look good too. The less political detail and debate, the better. People need to know the basics - that they might have trouble with checkpoints, or that East Jerusalem's present and future status is complicated - but the main focus should be on all the amazing sites to see and things to do. If people are interested in the details, there's plenty of internet places to go for that.

EDIT - I've also started a "politics" section which we can fill with a paragraph of the essential things to know about the current situation so that they don't spill over into the other parts of the article, but I'm so not sure how to lay that one out so I'm just going to leave it for another brave soul. LeptonMadness (talk) 04:07, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

It remains surprisingly empty and I'm not wholly convinced it's necessary in a travel article when so much is written on news websites about Middle Eastern politics... --118.93nzp (talk) 03:47, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Capital

An anonymous user changed the capital from Ramallah to East Jerusalem. I reverted without much thought given the level of attention this article gets, but thinking about it further, with the recent Hamas / Fatah split of the West Bank and Gaza I don't actually know what is considered the current capital. If there is another city that is now the de facto capital, or if there is no longer a true capital, please update the article. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 21:38, 4 February 2008 (EST)

Ramallah is still the de facto capital, although the PA continues to claim that Jerusalem is/will be their real capital. (WT-en) Jpatokal 22:54, 4 February 2008 (EST)

I edited it where it said it is necessary to respect Palestinians due to the Israeli occupation to due to the Arab-Israeli conflict, because there is no occupation. Do you consider it to be occupation in the U.S., because Native Americans don't have their own country? Is there an Australian occupation? How about Canadian? They act like it's some crime to establish our state, well the real crime was 6,000,000 of us being killed, and we need our own state if, godforbid, something like that ever happened again, so we would have somewhere to go. Arab-Israeli conflict is fine, occupation is not.

The nature of a wiki is that anyone can edit it, and every article that has any bearing on the Israeli-Palestinian situation gets tons of edits that slant it in either direction - it is impossible to keep up with all of them all the time, so cleanups like yours are appreciated. Project:Be fair describes the official policy on addressing divisive topics, but please understand that there will always be someone who edits an otherwise reasonable article to inject divisive views. While we try to patrol for such edits, any help in correcting them is appreciated. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 02:37, 22 May 2008 (EDT)

Regardless of what the person above thinks. The West Bank and Gaza are deemed under occupation by Israel by the world, also known as the international community or the UN. Deal with it! Even the Israeli government admits this. The situation in the Golan and E. Jer. the is different but again the international community does not recognize this as part of Israel! Take your political / nationalistic rants elsewhere. The object is being neutral here and the word occupation is a fact. I suggest you check the legal status of the area before you let your emotions get in the way...

Palestinian Authhority considers Ramallah, "temporary capital". East Jerusalem is an occupied territory according to United Nations (several General Assembly resolutions ask Israel to withdraw the territory).

The 6.000.000 figure is questioned by majority of historians today (i.e: Auschwitz plates in honour of dead people (not only Jews) has been decreased a couple of times). 6.000.000 figure appears in 1943 documents, also in post WW I documents. Finally, did Palestinians supported Nazism? what kind of argument is that? I don't want to be polemic with the 6 million figure because it deals nothing with Palestine.

"Occupation" is the accurate term according to United Nations and International Law, not my opinion, but Law. If someone feels offended by that term he should consider that they were the same United Nations who approved the establishment of Israel. Please put a little coherence. If we consider UN as to legitimate the creation of a new State (so we do recognize the State of Israel) we should apply the same UN criterion elsewhere and to make clear that Israel is not only occupying but, doing so, also violating a great number of UN resolutions (more than any other country). My claim is not POV for Palestinians nor for Israelis, but for the respect of International Law (the more perfect instrument humankind has to resolve conflicts in the moment I'm writing). I am in Jerusalem now to study the conflict, the base to do it should begin by studying the legal documents and not the suffering of Jews during WW II). I've found very interesting a travel guide to the holy sites edited by Palestinian Initiative to Responsible Tourism with the support of Christian networks in the Holy Land. I don't think Christians networks could be under suspicion of being pro-Palestinians, much less anti-Jewish. Please have a look to their Code of Conduct to see by yourselves how impartial it seems. Good vibes to Jews and Palestinians. ;-) —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 213.6.46.47 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 24 July 2010

The fact is though that Jerusalem remains the capital of Palestine and since there is no Palestinian state we can only regard the capital as that considered by the people to be their capital. Jerusalem is clearly the city identified by most, if not all, to be the capital. If this site wants to be apolitical, both Israel and the oPt articles should refer 'disputed' or some similar point. —The preceding comment was added by (WT-en) 213.6.51.14 (talk • contribs)

It's clear that the capital is in dispute (and the article states this) but from a traveler's perspective the capital is not Jerusalem - Israel controls that city, and as I understand it the Palestinian authority does not have a significant presence there. A traveler looking for government offices will find them in Ramallah, and thus as a practical matter, since there isn't an internationally agreed-upon choice, that would seem (to me) like the correct city to use in a travel article. -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 21:27, 23 September 2010 (EDT)

Per WikiPedia:Ramallah, Ramallah is the "administrative capital". Would changing the language in this article to reflect that be sufficient? -- (WT-en) Ryan • (talk) • 21:37, 23 September 2010 (EDT)

Yes, the use of the label administrative capital would be clearer. I understand your point about travelers and practicalities but Palestine is a political place and calling Ramallah the capital may alienate you. When Israelis try to wipe Arabic names off the map, such distinctions become more important. In any case, the article on Israel accepts Jerusalem as its capital although you mean West Jerusalem and many countries do not recognise this, placing embassies in Tel Aviv.

I favour Ryan's position. --118.93nzp (talk) 03:51, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Israeli settlements on the West Bank

There was a recent edit that added population percentages and other facts about Israeli settlers on the West Bank. The edit was reverted without comment . Some of the language in the edit could have been seen as inflammatory and presented a particular point of view unnecessary for a travel guide. However, Israeli settlements such as Efrat are indeed covered within the West Bank hierarchy, not Israel, so shouldn't the population figures include Israeli settlers, rather than ignoring them? Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:15, 25 March 2013 (UTC)

Probably, Yes.

I think that this version was more factually accurate and gave a better understanding for a visitor than the version that immediately succeeded it but, as we both know, we have to tiptoe around the facts for fear of inflaming controversy... --118.93.244.91 03:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Title

The title "Palestinian territories" sounds odd. Can it be titled "Palestine" please? I believe this name has been chosen because WP uses the same but WV is not an encyclopaedia. --Saqib (talk) 17:11, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

I would support this change. Most of the world community recognizes Palestine, and it is a better-sounding name. I think we should leave this discussion open for at least a week and give this discussion wider visibility, though, because we don't want people to suddenly object after the fact more than they will, anyway. Ikan Kekek (talk) 22:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Other things being equal, brevity is good.

Unfortunately, in this case it is trumped by our usual practice of using the most common English name in general use. Personally I do hope that the currently occupied and fragmented (both physically and in their political allegiances) Palestinian territories do achieve some semblance of a working country - but I'm not holding my breath - and until they do, the current title is my weak preference. To me the acid test will be when I can visit "Palestine" without always having to beg the permission of an Israeli border guard first... --118.93.244.91 03:39, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

It seems that most tour operators call it "Palestine", so my weak support for that. By the way, Wikipedia has w:Palestine w:State of Palestine w:Palestinian territories. I see one hotel described as "best in Palestine". But if it is sensitive, I am OK with status quo as well. Nicolas1981 (talk) 16:20, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Saqib placed a speedy delete tag on Palestine in order to carry out the move, but since there's no clear consensus yet, only a few contributors to this discussion and the topic indeed is fairly political, I've removed it for now and will post a link on the RfC page to get some more eyes on it. I don't feel qualified to give a real opinion on the proposal to move and don't oppose it, I just think it was a bit too soon to move ahead. JuliasTravels (talk) 17:11, 16 January 2014 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. It's simply unavoidable that we'll offend someone with our coverage of the Israel/Palestine mess. This is fundamentally a political question, and one of which is the lesser evil: offending ardent pro-Israel diehards or offending ardent pro-Palestine diehards. Six of one, a half-dozen of the other. In situations like this, my understanding of policy is that we default to reflecting, without taking a political stance, the objective reality on the ground. 118 is absolutely right here: other nations can make the purely symbolic political statement of officially recognizing Palestine till the cows come home, but if Palestine were currently an independent and sovereign nation in the full sense of the word, the Middle East would be a very different place. Meanwhile, the status quo seems to not have caused us too many problems thus far, and frankly, some might mistakenly construe the very act of changing the page's title from "Palestinian territories" to "Palestine" as a political statement on our part. Nicolas1981's point is well-taken, though, and in the interest of the traveller I think it would also be best to retain Palestine as a redirect to Palestinian territories. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
• Weak oppose . Again, we want to avoid be seen as making political statements. Interestingly, (according to WP) the State of Palestine has "non-member observer state" status with the UN, which is the same as the Vatican (Listed by WV as just part of the city of Rome). On the other hand Switzerland had the same status for 50 years whilst being a fully independent European country at the same time. Andrewssi2 (talk) 01:04, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't we see things from a traveller point of view? Look at many of the controversial territorial disputes such as Kosovo, Northern Cyprus and Taiwan, we're using the name as they know commonly but still we never offended anyone. Did we? To me "Palestinian territories" sound a very political title and this is being very unfair to Palestine. Btw, how many editors on this wiki use term "Palestinian territories" when they either talk about Palestine or going to Palestine? I'm sure none then how the term "Palestinian territories" is workable for a traveller? --Saqib (talk) 15:39, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

This is actually an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:State_of_Palestine#Proposed_merge_with_Palestinian_territories

(Actually the discussion is around naming the place 'Palestine', 'State of Palestine' or 'Palestinian territories')

I am not saying that consensus in WP should directly dictate WV content. That said, they have a lot more people and are basically arguing the same points that we are doing here. Why not let it play out on WP first rather than argue about it here? (Which I feel is going to be a painful exercise) Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I should clarify that I don't care greatly about this question of nomenclature, and if it is overly controversial, I'm fine with keeping the name as it is. The arguments that have been made in this thread have made sense to me. Ikan Kekek (talk) 04:48, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

This is still on the Requests for comment page. Since consensus to change wasn't apparently met, and the discussion is dormant for two months I will move to close this for now. Andrewssi2 (talk) 02:09, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I'm confused; there seem to be conflicting claims above. Ikan claims that "Most of the world community recognizes Palestine" but 118.93 says that "using the most common English name in general use" requires us to keep it at "Palestinian territories". Is it only English-speaking persons who don't recognize Palestine? Powers ^(talk) 15:50, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether this is a confusion between diplomatic recognition (where most of the world would indeed recognise "Palestine") and varieties of English usage, where many native varieties of English would reserve "Palestine" for the historic British mandate and reserve "Palestinian Territories" for the currently illegally occupied areas. Parallels with "Malaya" and "Malaysia" ? --118.93nzp (talk) 19:56, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

It's true I wasn't sure what meaning of "recognizes" Ikan intended, but either way I think my question stands... if most of the countries of the world have diplomatically recognized the state of Palestine (as, presumably "Palestine"), then might it not be fair to say that usage favors that as well? Powers ^(talk) 00:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I meant diplomatic recognition - not necessarily an embassy, but an official recognition that there is a state of Palestine. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I think "Palestine" generally refers to the entire region comprising Israel, the West Bank, & Gaza. Also, the traveler comes first and "Palestinian territories" is the more commonly encountered term. While we don't exactly have an NPOV policy, most disputed regions come with a disclaimer that WV doesn't endorse claims of either side. In that case, "Palestinian territories" is also the most neutral term. It's like using "Taiwan" vs "Republic of China"...despite government preference for RoC, Taiwan is both common in English and the more neutral term. AHeneen (talk) 07:36, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

I understand your argument. To be fair, though, the Republic of China is recognized by few countries in the world, though many have relations at the "trade mission" level with Taiwan, which they officially consider a province of China. But that side argument aside, if you are correct that the name "Palestine" will confuse many readers into considering it to include Israel (or/and Jordan), and the phrase "Palestinian territories" will not, that's a good argument for maintaining the current name. One problem with it, though, is that places that are recognized by most of the world as nations almost never include the word "territories" in their names. Can you think of another? Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)

Ikan Kekek: Sorry for bringing it too late and I have no intention to restart this discussion as I can agree with some arguments raised last year, but anyway thought of letting you know if what do you think of State of Palestine? --Saqib (talk) 02:09, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm a little doubtful at this point. Functionally, the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas, are different entities, so which one is the State of Palestine? For the purposes of a traveler, I don't think they are really the same, as different governments have to give permission for entry. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:12, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

I see. I was not aware of this. Then lets leave it as it is. But I thought that State of Palestine under Mahmoud Abbas govern and control both territories. I never been to Palestine so don't really know if who issue visa for which territory but if Hamas still govern or control Gaza Strip, then yes it make sense not not rename it to State of Palestine. --Saqib (talk) 02:23, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

In theory, there's supposed to be a national unity government of both parts of Palestine (not counting Israel proper, which many Palestinians consider "Palestine of 1948"), but in practice, there is no unity between Hamas and al-Fatah, which are pretty hostile to each other. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:14, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

As I see it, the current title is the only correct one. As Ikan says, the West Bank & Gaza Strip are politically quite different, so it is not at all clear what "State of Palestine" might refer to. Also, neither is fully independent; both are partly controlled by Israel.

"Palestine" is correct as a historical term, but in much historical usage it includes all of what is now Israel. We should not take such a strong position (or in fact any position) here, though some Palestinians do and in English-language Saudi media the term "Israel" is never used; it is referred to only as "occupied Palestine". Pashley (talk) 17:03, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

Coverage of East Jerusalem

As Wikivoyage recognizes all clearly-established de facto conditions (see, for example, our treatment of Crimea and Kashmir), East Jerusalem is by that standard (again: of clearly-established de facto control) simply part of an Israeli city, though this status is disputed by every or almost every other country and faces sometimes violent resistance from Palestinians. I have therefore removed all coverage of East Jerusalem as part of Palestine, to be consistent with Wikivoyage's worldwide policy on de facto conditions, and instead inserted a disclaimerbox. I hope everyone will understand that my action is not politically motivated and is not intended to express any view about the desirability of the current de facto situation continuing; instead, it's in the interest of benefitting travellers, who need Israeli entry stamps or visas and not Palestinian ones in order to visit any part of Jerusalem. If that situation ever changes, that will be the time to change the breadcrumb trail of the East Jerusalem article to Palestine, rather than Israel. And if Crimea ever reverts to Ukrainian control, etc., etc. Ikan Kekek (talk) 08:53, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Intifada of the knives

I'm posting this message on Talk:Israel and Talk:Palestinian territories: Should there be a new warning about the rash of knifings and other attacks by young Palestinians on Israelis, and attacks by Israelis on Palestinians and also in some cases of mistaken identity, on non-Palestinians they have mistaken for terrorists? The danger seems greatest in Jerusalem, based on media reports, but attacks have also occurred elsewhere in Israel and on the West Bank. Ikan Kekek (talk) 11:23, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Only linking to subarticles for get in and get around

The choice to only link to the subarticles for some sections doesn't seem in line with policy. I just reverted the deletion of the basic get around information (for a minute I thought it was the get in information). Country and large regions are bound to have some duplication with their subarticles. While the information in higher level articles can surely be more general, having no actual information in them would not make them useful on their own. For this article, I think some text for get in is also required. JuliasTravels (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

Make this more of a disambiugation page

There is little that the West Bank and Gaza have in common these days and they are geographically separated anyway, maybe it'd be better to have this page more of a disambiguation page with the clearer details in the West Bank and Gaza Strip articles. Hobbitschuster (talk) 22:04, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

There may be some true pragmatism in this, but frankly you are opening us up for a whole deal of pain if you want to suggest that the West Bank and Gaza are seperate. Very few Palestinians themselves would support such a view, even if they disagree about who should be running things. I appreciate this is inconsistent with our consensus on subjects such as Crimea, but I would still support this being regarded as one country (or territory), albeit rather divided. Andrewssi2 (talk) 23:55, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

User:Ar2332 : Can you comment here in an ongoing discussion before making large changes to 'get in'? Thanks --Andrewssi2 (talk) 08:09, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. Basically, I think it depends on the section. Some sections, like "Understand" and "Buy", are common to WB and Gaza and should be discussed here. Other sections, like "Get in" and "Get around", are entirely different for WB and Gaza. It would better to concentrate this info on the WB/Gaza pages to avoid duplication and misleading implications (i.e. getting around by bus - Gaza has no buses, so the PT article should not discuss buses without mentioning that it's WB-only). My bottom line: PT is close enough to a country that it needs a real page not just disambiguation, but detailed information that's specific to WB or Gaza should be on that page not the PT page. Ar2332 (talk) 08:27, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

That's true for many countries and large regions though, and this kind of information often differs per sub-region. Some duplication is normal on this level. It's fine to stick to the most general information in the country article and refer to the more detailed information in the subarticles, but I don't think it's okay to simply have no text and only a link. A reader wanting to get a general idea about a country or area should be able to get a basic understanding of the general means of transportation etc without having to read two more subpages. JuliasTravels (talk) 11:14, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

How do we handle other "countries" (for lack of a better term) with non-contiguous territory? What for example would we have done had we existed during the time when Bangladesh was "East Pakistan" or in a hypothetical timeline where Quebec secedes and leaves Canada split in two? I'm not sure our coverage on Angola is detailed enough to take Cabinda into account and a similar thing likely applies for Kaliningrad Oblast, but I think we should see the issue from the practical standpoint that you simply cannot get from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank without either entering Israel or some other third country, and they are de facto governed by different entities (though what happens when Mahmoud Abbas dies or resigns is another can of worms entirely) Hobbitschuster (talk) 20:16, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Sure; but why not let the get in section simply explain that, rather than reducing it to a link? JuliasTravels (talk) 20:24, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

Well I think whatever does apply to both Gaza and the West Bank (btw should the name "Judea /Samaria" be mentioned and if so where) should be mentioned here and for everything else we should direct our readers' attention to the Gaza and West Bank articles. Hobbitschuster (talk) 21:31, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

The name "Judea and Samaria" is most relevant to the West Bank article, where it should be mentioned as the most common name given to the territory by inhabitants of Jewish settlements and their political supporters. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:53, 14 March 2017 (UTC)

If we would only mention the information that is really relevant and correct for both, that would indeed leave us with a strange combination of an article and a disambiguation page. I don't particularly like that idea, but Hobbitschuster's point that the regions really are quite far apart is an important one. If we have to go down that road, I'd prefer a clear disambiguation and some overlapping information in the two articles over a half-way solution where we follow the article template but with half of the sections empty. I do however agree with Andrewssi2 that, to avoid political discussion, such a page would need to make clear that the two territories are considered as one political entity, and that we only separate the information for the benefit of travel purposes - like we do with overseas territories of Western countries, for example. I could imagine something of a relatively long intro, with links to the two region articles under it. Perhaps the best thing would be to set it up in a sandbox somewhere, and see what we can make of it and if that would be better than the current situation? JuliasTravels (talk) 12:15, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

More welcoming?

Re: this edit: the policy of this site is Wikivoyage:Be fair. If it's generally true that "Palestinians are...often more welcoming to foreign visitors than Israelis are," we should say so. Is it generally true? Ikan Kekek (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we can get an objective answer to this question. Ar2332 (talk) 13:24, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

We'd be looking for a fair answer, not an objective one. However, if that's impossible, that edit was good. Ikan Kekek (talk) 05:45, 11 February 2023 (UTC)